


But We're Still Losers

by CallMeMarzPlz



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Earth is conquered Au, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Explicit Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Violence, Slow Burn, Space Jail, implied PTSD, jail break, older dib
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-10-04 18:54:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20475899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeMarzPlz/pseuds/CallMeMarzPlz
Summary: “So. I know why I’m in here, but how about you?”With that, the agonizing quiet of the cell was broken at last. Dib was surprised by how even his voice sounded, all things considered; as if the psychological factors weren’t enough to have him trembling, the dry air of the dark cell was chilled enough that he had anticipated his voice quaking.Maybe I sounded more badass than I feel. He thought bleakly, staring into the darkness, waiting for his assumption to be proven incorrect.The creature in the darkness remained hidden obstinately, unconcerned with Dib’s desire to go out in a blaze of glory. Time continued to drip past, in spite of Dib’s terror, and he found himself finally feeling the exhaustion of the days of fighting prior to his containment.





	1. Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dib would have thought that an absence of explosions would be nice to his poor ears, but he was wrong. The silence rang heavier somehow, let him really revel in how bad his tinnitus had become. But that was to be expected – if listening to Mysterious Mysteries too loud with his headphones could cause ringing, it was no surprise that literal alien doomsday devices would do worse.

Chapter 1 - Dib

Dib woke to stiffness, silence, and seclusion. As his consciousness slowly returned, he was made aware of the throbbing pain emanating from all over his body. He was lightly charred and bruised all over, but the worst of it was contained to his left side, where he could feel shrapnel still firmly burrowed in his flesh.

Dib would have thought that an absence of explosions would be nice to his poor ears, but he was wrong. The silence rang heavier somehow, let him really revel in how bad his tinnitus had become. But that was to be expected – if listening to Mysterious Mysteries too loud with his headphones could cause ringing, it was no surprise that literal alien doomsday devices would do worse.

_Dad warned me about listening to stuff too loud, and I ignored him._ Dib thought grimly. _He ignores me when I tell him about our impending doom. I guess that makes us even, huh, Dad? _

Dib didn’t know where his father was now, or his sister. Hell, he didn’t know where he was. He could extrapolate some information about his location, of course; considering the oppressive metal walls that loomed over him, the dark, chilled air, and the barred windows looking out over the frightening expanse of space, he could safely say some form of space jail. Or brig, he realized, watching the stars glide by impossibly fast, a brig is a jail on a ship.

_Who’s ship am I on, then?_ Dib wondered stupidly. It wasn’t a hard leap of logic to make. The harder thing to figure out was – _why_ was he on this ship?

The 24-year old made sounds unsuited for an adult as he attempted to sit vertically. The drumbeat of his heart picked up double-time, and Dib became ill from the ways he could feel his clothes become warm as his heart pumped blood out the openings of his injuries. He’d been stripped of his body armor while he was unconscious, and the casual garb he’d put on underneath did very little to keep him warm – although for some reason, they’d allowed him to keep his coat. It was more for aesthetics than function – Dib was a big enough guy to admit that, if only to himself – but it defended him from the chill of space and blood-loss better than anything else he had on.

Curiously, without allowing himself to hope, Dib patted down his pockets with his right hand. A painful gasp of excitement burst from him when he felt a promising rectangular shape – a phone??

His happiness was dashed when he pulled out a small stack of his stashed ration bars instead.

_I guess it makes sense that they’d leave me with these,_ He thought miserably. _If I’m in a cage and not dead, I guess that means they want me to stay that way, and they probably don’t want to waste their supplies on a race they just conquered. _

That thought opened the floodgates, and Dib found himself unable to silence the sudden wail that escaped his parted lips. He felt his mouth moving to produce more distressing sounds as his mind replayed his last memories in startling clarity.

He pressed his balled-up right hand hard against his eyes, trying to force out the images, and more than that – the shame. It was too late. It was… over. So quickly, so efficiently. So mercilessly. Years of research amounted to nothing. A lifetime of waiting for life beyond the stars, punished in the most horrific, ironic way. The bitter hot tears stung in the cuts of his face a Dib lost his mind in the solitude of his cell. Even this moment was cut short, as Dib suddenly found himself once again flat on his back, his head bouncing painfully back onto the metal floor. Squinting through the pain and tears, Dib was only barely able to perceive the shape of something insectoid as it crouched over his chest.

_Not alone. _

Dib’s right arm lashed out to shove the thing away, but only the very edge of his blunt nails found any purchase as the thing launched itself backwards and out of sight just as quickly. Breath heavy, heart pounding, Dib pushed himself backwards until his back felt the wall. Nowhere to run. He was sent here to die, after all. He clamped his chattering teeth close together to silence their staccato sounds, firmly intending to die as bravely as he could.

Moments pass like an eternity, Dib’s eyes darting around uselessly in the darkness of the cell. The only sounds he could perceive came from his own terrified body. Somehow, the waiting was far worse than anything Dib had endured thus far, worse even than watching his childhood home sink into an artificial sinkhole in the earth, worse than watching his sister scream as she pummeled invader’s bodies into the ground with her bat. Dib decided he wasn’t going to wait for his comeuppance.

“So. I know why I’m in here, but how about you?”

With that, the agonizing quiet of the cell was broken at last. Dib was surprised by how even his voice sounded, all things considered; as if the psychological factors weren’t enough to have him trembling, the dry air of the dark cell was chilled enough that he had anticipated his voice quaking.

_Maybe I sounded more badass than I feel._ He thought bleakly, staring into the darkness, waiting for his assumption to be proven incorrect.

The creature in the darkness remained hidden obstinately, unconcerned with Dib’s desire to go out in a flam of glory. Time continued to drip past, in spite of Dib’s terror, and he found himself finally feeling the exhaustion of the days of fighting prior to his containment.

_As long as I die, does it matter if this thing kills me in my sleep, or while I’m antagonizing it?_ Dib wondered. His eyes began to slip closed. _Gaz and Dad are probably dead. As long as I get to see them again, it’s fine, isn’t it? _

When he finally sunk into unconsciousness, he saw his family. Gaz was grinning at him, triumphant, arms free from blood – her own and her enemies – and Dad was openly crying, his face obfuscated by his collar. Smiling so hard his face hurt from it, Dib ran to them. They all crushed into one another in a family hug, all sobbing and laughing.

_Oh, Dib, I’m so sorry I doubted you._ Said his father.

_Who woulda thought, my insane big bro was right about something?_ Said his sister.

Dib tightened his grip on them both, determined to never let them go.

_ I’m so sorry, my Tallest._ Said an unfamiliar voice.

What was that, Dad? Dib questioned, pulling back from the hug. His father looked down at him, but his googles were gone, replaced by bulging red eyes.

Suddenly he couldn’t get away fast enough, and he was assaulting the two of them with healthy arm and injured arm alike, battering them with open palms and hyperventilating. Dib’s eyes burst open, finally freed from this dream-turned-nightmare – or so he thought.

Immediately before him, illuminated by a haunting red light, he saw that misshapen head, those bulging eyes, the three-pronged hands contorted into claws. Dib reacted before he could think, lashing out with one leg to kick it away from him. It hissed, aware now of its enemy’s wakefulness, and Dib cried out as he felt it swipe one clawed hand down the offending leg.

_Time to die,_ he thought, both courageously and cowardly. _Here I come, guys. _

Instead, he felt just one more swipe of claws against the top of his calves before the creature slinked back into the darkness. Dib stared after it, angry and confused.

_Even now, I’m not anybody’s biggest problem. I’m not even… a threat. I’m an inconvenience. _

He curled in on himself, wrapped his fingers around his new wounds and just let the blood seep into his palm as he began to sob miserably. His whole life was a joke, and now his death would be one, too. No glorious battle, no validation for his years of research and training. He would bleed out, or starve, or die of exposure in the loneliness of space jail. Maybe it was what he deserved.

“Would you stop making that pitiful racket?” Hissed a voice. Dib scowled to himself, angry at the command, but not enough to obey it. “I said _stop_, you insolent worm!”

“What’s it to you if I want to spend my last few days alive miserable!” Dib yelled back, voice utterly broken to the point where it caused him to flinch in shame.

“You’re not fooling me!” The voice called back. Dib’s sobs lessened in his confusion.

“I- what?”

“I said you’re not _fooling_ me, _fool_! You want the mighty – you want me to think you’re so vulnerable, don’t you? You want me to think you’re weak, so you can see me weak! Well I have news for you, you hideous, vile thing – it’s not working!”

Dib sat in stunned silence as he listened to the thing’s shrill voice echo off the walls of the cell. Then, he couldn’t help it; he started laughing. It hurt, god it hurt his entire body, but the absurdity shook him so profoundly that he had no choice but to double over and positively wheeze with laughter. The creature in the darkness, seemingly convinced that its ideas were correct, retreated, not to be heard from again as Dib sunk back into unconsciousness.

His last thought before pure delirious exhaustion forced him to rest were: _I guess having a cellmate isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me._


	2. Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since their first interaction, it had been radio silence between the two, which was fine by Dib. In that time, he had yet to see anything beyond a glint of metal and a flash of movement, all of which may have been the result of his exhausted, delirious mind, but on the off chance that he wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought he was, he was going to err on the side of caution.

**Dib**

It had been about three days, by Dib’s count. Not that a “day” meant anything in the void of space. Dib counted sleep cycles to keep himself from going insane; every time he woke, he’d make a mark on the wall with the metal of his glasses, inspect his crusty, poorly-healing injuries, and resume staring out the tiny windows of his cell.

He’d allowed himself the opportunities for rest only thrice so far, after at least 20-hour periods of wakefulness. Though he was mildly sure that his cellmate wasn’t dead-set on murdering him, he wasn’t too keen on giving it an easy win.

Since their first interaction, it had been radio silence between the two, which was fine by Dib. In that time, he had yet to see anything beyond a glint of metal and a flash of movement, all of which may have been the result of his exhausted, delirious mind, but on the off chance that he wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought he was, he was going to err on the side of caution.

Yes, he had decided, however temporarily, that he’d try to keep living. That initial wave of hopelessness had passed over him, leaving him numb, but rational. Dad and Gaz were… maybe alive. They were smart, practical. Resilient. That hope wasn’t much, but it meant that Dib felt he had to survive long enough to find out one way or the other. Which meant he had to keep his wits about him.

_How else am I supposed to survive on… oh yeah! An alien spaceship! Or – an alien brig, to be more precise! Of the aliens I fucking warned everyone about for years! Imagine that!_

Dib’s self-righteous inner-monologue was interrupted as he felt the air shift. There it went again, scuttling around like a bug. Without his permission, his mind summoned an image of the creatures that had ransacked his planet. Holding the thought for longer than a second made Dib’s stomach churn.

_You can yell at Dad and Gaz later_, He told himself. _For now, just focus on staying alive._

From the sound of it, the thing had gotten antsy. His back pressed against the corner he’d stumbled back into, Dib hesitantly raised both fists to eye-level. It was apparent that the creature was at least _slightly_ afraid of him, but he worried it would test him in some way that would reveal how powerless Dib truly was. He hoped adrenaline would be enough to help him win any fights. 

There was a distant sound, like scissors being opened and closed very quickly.

“I-I don’t want any trouble,” Dib said, his voice halfway between a squeak and a wheeze, “don’t you think we both have bigger problems than fucking with each other?”

The next sound to break the silence was a dry chuckle.

“_You_ probably do, Earth-boy.”

Dib felt a sneer rise on his face. He was sure he’d never heard this specific voice before, but there was something so unmistakable about the voice of an Irken. Maybe it was the unusual pronunciation, or emphasis, maybe it was the touch of a whirring sound when they spoke – like a voice that wasn’t all organic, like it somehow emerged autotuned. Whatever it was, it – quite logically, he thought – sent chills up his spine.

“You haven’t been in here that long, then.” Dib surmised, attempting to regain any façade of wit and strength. “If you know about Earth – I mean, that was pretty recent. So, I guess you’re not like – an ancient alien serial killer I’ve been tossed in here with, I guess?”

“Think you’re _so_ smart, huh?” Came the unamused reply. “What if I’d just _guessed_ that Earth fell to the empire? Idiot.”

Dib’s sneer intensified. The creature moved again. Metal sounds helped him track the invisible alien’s moments in the darkness. Dib got the feeling it was pacing just out of his line of sight.

“It’s not like any planet could stand against Irk anyways.” Continued the disembodied voice. Dib could practically _hear_ the smirk rising to its face. “Especially a stupid planet like yours.”

“Hey, shut up!” Dib snapped before he could stop himself. He was shaking now, but it wasn’t because of the cold. “The Earth wasn’t stupid. You don’t get to say that.”

“Of course I do.” The voice sounded offended that it was told otherwise. “The invasion took so little time, it barely even counted as an invasion. It was _pathetic_.”

“Our planet wasn’t _prepared_.” Dib grit out. “We don’t – we didn’t live like you live. We were content with our own planet, like it was.”

“More like the pig-beasts who occupied it weren’t smart enough to know their sky wasn’t a glass dome keeping them trapped inside.” It wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it was so not his right to say so. A thought came into Dib’s mind, and he replied offhandedly,

“Well, it’s not like you get to comment on anybody’s competence – after all, look at you - you’re in here with me_._”

“_Shut your face!_”

The tone the voice had taken on intensified Dib’s shudders. He knew, distantly, that he should stop egging this thing on. That awareness didn’t serve him all too well, in the end.

“I’m not like you.” Hissed the voice. “My being here is a mistake. But even so - even in here – I’m still an Irken Elite, and I’m still better than the very best your pitiful planet had to offer.”

“What kind of great empire imprisons its elites for no reason?” Dib scoffed before he could stop himself.

There was another sound of metal moving against metal, and then Dib was sent to his knees by a sudden burst of pain spreading throughout his chest. As his vision became staticky, Dib’s hands fluttered uselessly over his torso. The room was suddenly a bit more red-tinted than it had been before.

“You would do well,” sneered the darkness, “to keep your pitiful mouth shut about things you don’t understand, Earth-Worm.”

There was a slight reprieve, followed by an ever more gut-wrenching pain. Dibs arms lost any helpful capabilities and he collapsed into a human-shaped puddle on the floor. He was distantly aware of small hands patting over the pockets of his jacket before he succumbed to an electricity-induced slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse the short chapter, I should be back by Saturday or Sunday with a lengthier update, so stay tuned!


	3. An Eye for an Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim had been praying to Tallest Red and Purple every night since his arrival to the Massive’s brig. They had to know they were mistaken. They had to know it was all messed up, that Zim didn’t belong here. Zim was their most faithful Invader, and they were supposed to reward that.

**Zim**

Irkens didn’t really do the whole god thing anymore. Their science was far more impressive than anything any god had done in ages, anyways. That wasn’t to say that none of them understood what it was like to have a god, just that to most Irkens, the Tallest had taken on that role.

Zim had been praying to Tallest Red and Purple every night since his arrival to the Massive’s brig. They had to know they were mistaken. They had to know it was all messed up, that Zim didn’t belong here. Zim was their most faithful Invader, and they were supposed to reward that. He had to make sure they knew that, so he told them with his mind every night. Even though the prison guards had stripped him of any helpful hardware and software to contact them, he somehow felt like they could still pick up on his vibes.

Yes, he’d made mistakes, but he’d also made good on his promise to redeem himself. He’d worked so very, very hard to do so. It had taken him years – years of observation, of calculation. Even with his resources stripped from him, he’d made do and delivered his reports dutifully, detailing potential resources, threats, and weaknesses. It had obviously been worth it – given that the planet he’d targeted ended up as part of the empire, in the end. Yet how was it that he ended up in a place like this? He had to believe it was against the desires of his Tallest. When they learned how their most revered invader had been treated, they would be furious. They’d release him, praise him, validate him.

_They have to_._ Zim should never have been locked up in the first place, but least of all with-_

“H-huh?” The earth creature thrashed in its sleep. “N-no!”

Glowing red eyes found their way back to the sleeping thing. Zim had been trying to breathe only through his eyes ever since he discovered he was not alone. Humans were, by far, one of the nastiest species he’d ever planned to conquer. The roughed-up specimen that was now his apparent cellmate was no different. It was tall – confusing – and built more like a researcher than some kind of warrior. The thing was positively _oozing_ from every orifice, and Zim was pretty sure that was _normal_ for them.

“Dreaming of a world where _you’re_ the only sentient life?” Zim wondered aloud, regretting it immediately as the thing’s vile odor seeped into his mouth, causing him to retch. So filthy. He wondered if the creatures themselves even understood how lucky they were, to be saved from their own stupidity and placed in the care of his superior Irken Empire.

“I told you!” Squeaked the thing. A moment later there was a _thump_ and an _ow_.

Zim wished it would stop moving. It was really so pitiful, watching it squirm on the floor. Zim hadn’t used lethal capacity – despite his best repairs, his PAK was nowhere near prepared for an actual attack – but even still, the 40 volts had easily floored the thing. Feeling something akin to pity, Zim wondered what it could have done to end up in a place like this.

“Did you fail to amuse your new Irken master, maybe?” He mused aloud. The thing stirred but did not wake. Grinning evilly, Zim continued. “Did you drop the snacks you were transporting from room to room? Must have been too much for your inferior body to take.”

_That would mean the mighty Zim is trapped in here with a failed earthling service-drone. _Suddenly Zim was no longer amused. He knew, logically, that this wasn’t the case – there were so few reasons a conquered race would be deemed worthy of an Irken prison, let along the brig of the Massive, but the thought depressed him, nevertheless. He cast his eyes upward. _My Tallest, how could you allow this to happen?_

The ceiling beam Zim had perched on was cold, even through his uniform. He was still sore from the unjustifiably rough treatment by the guards, and the unyielding press of metal on his healing body was beginning to make him distantly nauseous. He unsteadily raised himself on the hallow, pathetically weak prisoner’s PAK legs he’d been given to replace his field legs, and attempted to find a warmer location.

The four legs were comically floppy, only capable of hefting the Irken’s weight for a minute at a time before they deflated back into the appropriate compartments. Zim miscalculated the time between shifting legs and found himself bouncing roughly on his ass as they gave out.

“Useless.” He croaked, hating as he felt moisture leak from his eyes, unbidden.

He glanced back at the floored earthling to ensure it was still unconscious. Zim had already searched its pockets for anything useful. Save for two plastic-wrapped bricks that Zim assumed were some kind of food ration, it had held nothing he cared about. Now, however, Zim couldn’t help but eye the black coat that seemed like it would provide some respite from the air’s chill.

He just had to decide to approach the horrid creature again. To _touch _it. A shudder worked its way down Zim’s spine.

_I can’t prove the Tallest’s concerns false if I die of exposure in my cell._ He rationalized.

Abandoning the use of his pathetic new PAK legs, Zim scuttled closer to the area on the floor that was occupied by his cellmate. His face absolutely burned with its foul stench, which only grew worse as he grew nearer. Zim worried, suddenly, that he’d accidentally killed the thing - not that he particularly cared what became of this creature, but – it was unlikely that the guards would believe him, and would probably leave Zim to smell its corpse as part of his punishment. Irkens had a sense of humor, after all.

“Earth-worm?” Zim extended a single hand, wanting to verify signs of life but unsure exactly how. Overcoming his anxieties of the thing’s germs, he placed a hand on the dark plane of cloth on its back. He felt its flesh rise and fall almost imperceivably.

“Still alive, then.” _Probably_.

Luckily, it was laying on its front, so Zim didn’t have to worry about its eyes suddenly opening and locking on him. Apprehensive still, he crept forward until he could get a hand on each shoulder of the earthling’s jacket, and tugged it backwards.

It groaned and resisted immediately, tucking in its arms to horde its source of warmth. Zim glared down at it, frustrated, and gave a stronger tug.

“I graduated already,” grumbled the earthling, “I don’t… gotta wake up… it’s too early.”

“Quit saying nonsense and surrender your warmth-keeper.” This time Zim ripped the cloth back until it came with him. The jerky movement brought the human’s arms as well, and Zim flinched as it started awake.

“Who’s – get off of me!” It flailed wildly, seemingly the only thing it was good at.

Zim balled the black fabric up and tucked it into his torso as he leapt out of its arm’s reach, and focused his energy on dimming the light from his PAK. The human sat up and clutched its arms to its chest, shuddering violently. Zim was suddenly once again concerned for any secret capacities the human may have – this one vibrated so often, like it too was storing energy. Like it was bottling kinetic power for an attack. Zim watched it carefully, standing so very still.

“_Really_?” It said at last. Zim remained silent, waiting. It heaved a sigh. “I’m annoyed because I’m _cold_, but – it’s not like you’re going to find anything useful in there.”

“Too late for that.” Zim crooned, unable to stop himself – wasn’t that always his problem? – and used his fragile PAK legs to heft him back to his hiding spot on a beam of the ceiling. “I already found your… nutrient blocks. Good luck energizing now, fool.”

“My – God damnit, why? Can you even eat it?”

Zim wondered that himself. Though he’d exposed his PAK to the light of distant stars as they passed by to keep it running, his organic half felt hollow and weak. He produced one of the bars from his PAK and stared at it accusatorily. The wrapper crinkled tellingly as he opened it.

“Really? _Really_?” Squawked the human. “They’re gonna feed us _eventually_, if they want to keep us alive, you know. And I bet they have food for _you_.”

“Silence” Zim demanded, and shoved the bar into his mouth before he could think twice. It sizzled against his tongue. He screamed, spitting it to the ground and rubbing his mouth furiously.

“Oh, my god.” There was loud clambering as the human went to save its precious, horrifying food source. Zim watched in disgust as it scraped the remains into its palms and glared at the ceiling, not knowing where Zim was hidden. “Are you happy, now? Jesus – can you just leave me alone? I don’t know what you did to get in here, but I’m sure it was _bad_, and I’m sure you and I _both_ have so many better ways to spend our time than fucking – trying to sabotage the other?”

“Sabotage?!” Zim shrieked, infuriated. Of course, he’d been correct to be wary of this one, it was smarter than it looked. It held _poison_, poison ‘rations’ on his person, _knowing_ Zim’s hunger would drive him to steal it. Enraged, Zim released all his PAK legs at once and dropped down, landing squarely on the human’s neck, claws at the ready. “You _dare_ attempt to murder _Zim_?”

Without hesitation, the human crumbled the ration bar in its fists and shoved his hands into Zim’s face. The burn was instant and excruciating. Zim began shrieking, one clawed hand trying to remove the vile poison from his flesh, the other trying to find purchase on the human’s, attempting to gouge out its primitive eyes. The scramble went on fruitlessly for both parties until the human stood, walked to the nearest wall, and ran backwards, tossing Zim roughly off, but also likely concussing itself at the same time.

Zim hit the ground hard and kept screaming, unable to remove the burning sensation, though most of the crumbs had fallen from his face. He curled in on himself, waiting for the human to finish the job, kick him until he was just a stain on the floor of the Massive’s brig, silent, forgotten. That thought hurt him more than anything else so far.

The barrage of kicks didn’t come, and eventually Zim’s screams died down, though the pain remained. He hazarded a look over his shoulder. The human was sitting against the wall, head between its knees, hands pressed to the back of its head. It seemed Zim had been right about it hurting itself. It _was_ an idiot.

“I think I was right about you not being able to eat my food.” It said, as if aware it was being observed. Zim took a step back, scowling. It sighed heavily, its hands rubbing circles on its battered head. “Look – Zim, right? Can you please just give me the last bar?”

Without replying, Zim produced the bar from his PAK and launched it at the human’s enormous head. It groaned lightly at the impact, but otherwise didn’t complain, leaning down to collect the thing and unwrap it. Zim watched eagerly, excited to see the human suffer similar injuries, but was disappointed when it calmly chewed and swallowed the ration.

“It appears you did not lie.” Zim said at length, voice calm. _This_ made the human jump, which pleased Zim. “Though I’m _horrified_ at the things you put in your body, I’m pleased to hear you’re not stupid enough to challenge me.”

“Anybody willing to challenge the mighty Zim would be an idiot, I agree.” Said the human dryly, but Zim didn’t pick up on its tone; his antennae twitched in unwilling pleasure at hearing spoken praise for his name for the first time in so long.

“I regret your hearing my name.” he half-lied. “Unlearn it, human filth!”

“What’s the harm?” Asked the human. “You seem proud of it.”

“I’m not proud to share it _here_,” Zim admitted. “it’s… unsuited for a place like this.”

The human raised its head, and the two of them finally made eye-contact in the muted light of Zim’s PAK. Zim felt utterly exposed, though he knew from experience that he was mostly concealed by the blessed darkness that human eyes couldn’t penetrate.

“I feel that.” Said the human thoughtfully, then added, “I’m Dib.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm high-key playing calvinball with a lot of details about Irk/Irkens... It's half due to not knowing a whole lot about the series, half due to my desire to make fun choices for alien invaders... but regardless, I hope it's fun for you guys :P


	4. Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shadow of a metallic bug fell over Dib before he could process the faint red glow emitting from somewhere behind it, and suddenly he was confronted with a shockingly petite monster. It had the green skin, huge red eyes, and robotic enhancements that Dib had come to recognize as Irken, for sure, but this thing couldn’t have been more than four feet tall on its own feet. Even the spindly legs that emerged from its strange technological backpack didn’t make it look scarier, so much as they drew attention to the tininess of the package they transported.

**Dib**

Time stopped having any real meaning for Dib relatively quickly after he’d consumed his last ration bar. On one hand, the hours dragged by when he focused on his gnawing hunger, only worsened by the lack of promise for relief. On the other, however, it was easier for him to relax, given the unspoken truce between himself and his cellmate.

He was very excitable, this Irken. Dib didn’t have many to compare him to – besides the warriors who had destroyed his planet – but he got the feeling that this one wasn’t the most beloved by his kind.

For one thing, he was pretty stupid. His stunt of jumping on Dib’s shoulders when Dib held what he’d assumed was a _toxic compound_ proved that much. He also frequently ate shit, a fact Dib knew from listening to the sounds of frantic clicks on metal, often interrupted by a loud _bang_ and the inevitable _oof_.

For another – he was pretty annoying. His voice, though Irken in sound, was shrill in tone, and this was only exacerbated when he yelled, as he did _way_ too often. The Irken race may be a warmongering one, but that didn’t mean they valued discord in _every _aspect of their lives, right? Dib had to wonder about that.

Not wanting another stupid encounter like their last one, Dib kept quiet for the most part, mulling over plans of escape, though none were plausible enough to take seriously. He wondered if Zim was doing the same, or if he was determined to keep Dib in there… maybe that was his game. It was as likely as any other scenario, at this point.

To be fair, Zim hadn’t attacked him since the day they’d exchanged names, seemingly content to simply stay hidden on one of the four beams above the cell and leave Dib alone. Dib didn’t know what he was doing up there, but he often heard him pacing back and forth frantically. Sometimes, he’d talk to himself, though he’d limit this activity to when he assumed Dib was asleep. Upon realizing this, Dib feigned sleep a lot more often. This resulted in him hearing some very interesting – and occasionally entertaining – things. He’d ramble about the “tallest” – which Dib figured _had_ to be code for something, obviously – and of conquest, and of feeling slighted. That last one came up a lot.

“Unbelievable… unthinkable.” He grumbled once again, his legs skittering almost directly above where Dib lay curled into fetal position – the bastard had kept his coat.

“To think, the celebratory Snacking will be held, and Zim will not be able to attend. Unless it’s already happened… _unthinkable_! They would not _dare_!” Dib snorted, blowing his cover, which he immediately regretted upon hearing the voice raise in volume. “You_ dare_ listen in on the private thoughts of _Zim_?”

Dib waited for him to drop down and assault him once again, and prepped by tensing every muscle, too tired and sore to do much else in the way of self-defense. To his surprise, the attack didn’t come. He wondered if he wasn’t the only one weak from hunger.

“Don’t feign sleep, worm! Answer for your _crimes_!” Zim reiterated.

“I’m… sorry,” Dib said, after a moment, unsure what else the creature wanted from him. “uh – not a whole lot else to do in here. I didn’t really mean to.”

“_Excuses_!” Dib flinches as Zim raked his claws down the metal beam, creating the most atrocious noise. “How dare you! And why the laughter-snort, you pitiful - _bean!_??”

“Bean?” Dib deadpanned. “Uh. I laughed because ‘celebratory snacking’ just sounds… like a super childish name. Especially considering it was named by the race that destroyed my planet. Like – space kids wrecked my shit. Cosmically - it’s funny.”

“How do you mean, _childish_?” Zim demanded. “It’s _descriptive_. Everyone knows what it means. It’s efficient language, _fool_.”

“You sure defend your people a lot,” Dib noted mildly, rolling from his side onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. Zim must have been hiding his light, again, as Dib couldn’t make it out. “considering they’re the ones who locked you up.”

“How many times must Zim explain to your feeble earth brain – I am not here on _purpose_. In the midst of all the chaos of the invasion, there was some confusion, to be sure. Some _other_ invader must have messed up pretty badly, if this is what their fate was meant to be. Even when Zim _did_ mess up in the past – _keep your filthy mouth shut, human! _– he was never treated _this_ badly. But I’m not worried. After all, I just gave my Tallest the _finest_ gift, they’re incredibly grateful to me.”

Dib went silent, feeling, of all things, pity for his cellmate. He was clearly deluded. Zim mistook his silence for – fear? Anger? – and laughed sinisterly in response.

“That’s _right_, human. It was _I! I_ was the initial invader that led to the conquest of your entire world!”

“I…” Dib’s brain short-circuited, baffled by this turn of conversation. “What? Y-you? You led the invasion?”

“Hahaha!” Laughed the creature. Dib felt heat rising in his face. _Could this imbecile really be the one responsible for…_

“Of course, I – well, no,” the alien admitted, “I er, I wasn’t allowed to leave my exile until I proved myself worthy. _Clear your mind of the knowledge of my exile, filth_! But – I sent the robots, oh so many robots, in order to learn more about the resources of your _hideous_ planet!”

There was so much there for Dib to unpack.

“So – did you lead the invasion, or not?” He snapped, wanting to know exactly how much energy to waste by getting mad.

“I did _better_,” Zim sneered. “I nominated the planet _for_ invasion. Our leaders had overlooked your speck in space – as any logical creatures would, on first sight – but my findings made them reconsider. Take, for instance, your hideously polluted oceans. Even mere _samples_ of it wounded the mighty Zim so badly, I knew that in the hands of my Tallest, the potential would be _devastating_. And obviously, Zim was right. I can only imagine what _havoc _they plan on wrecking on _other planets_ with everything they obtained from _yours_.”

Dib thought he heard the creature keep ranting, but he couldn’t hear anything past the angry throbbing of his heart in his ears. His teeth ground against each other, his jaw hurt, and he was seeing red in a way that had nothing to do with his unusual light source.

“You sure did earn your way back from exile, huh?” He spat, interrupting Zim. “Oh, yeah, you’re back in _good graces _with your ‘Tallest’, aren’t you, space bug?”

Zim spluttered above him. Dib sat up, undeterred, and went on.

“What could you _possibly_ have done to make you _so_ endeared to them? To be their _obvious favorite_? Oh wait – you’re full of shit, aren’t you? Clearly, your leaders _hate_ you, and no amount of sending them – fucking planets! – as ‘I’m sorry’ gifts is going to fix that.”

“Shut your filthy mouth.” Came the warning growl. “You know nothing of-“

“You’re in space jail with one of the ‘filthy creatures’ that you hate so much, and – more than that! You’re locked in here with a species that yours is _clearly_ afraid of! What other conclusions can you draw from that, Zim?!” Dib was yelling now, but he didn’t care. “You think it was an _accident_? Was your exile an _accident_ too? Wake up! They _hate_ you, they want you _dead_, and if not, then why would they lock you in here with _me?!”_

There were white-hot tears running down Dib’s cheeks. He didn’t know if he necessarily even believed anything the alien had told him, but regardless, he hated that the space bug was _bragging_ about it, was so fucking delighted to be the cause of so much pain. Past that – the sheer idea of being trapped with the very Irken who had destroyed his entire life, his family, was enough to energize Dib for at least one last battle. He knew he wouldn’t win – he just wanted to cause as much damage as he could to the bastard before he kicked the bucket. That included verbally bullying it too, apparently.

It took a while for Dib to hear past the intense ringing in his ears – it hadn’t eased in the time of his imprisonment – and he realized in confusion that Zim wasn’t screaming back. He was muttering something, again and again.

“Zim is Irk’s finest invader.”

Dib waited for the inevitably explosion of rage, but it didn’t come. Feeling emotionally blue-balled, he huffed and scooted until his back was against the wall again. It wasn’t satisfying for him, kicking at the self-esteem of such an obviously unstable, deluded alien. At some point, he must have drifted off. He wasn’t sure for how long, but he was startled awake when Zim at last found his rebuttal.

“Why are _you_ in here?!”

Dib groaned, exhausted emotionally and physically. “M’planet was ransacked.”

“_Fool!”_ Well, he’d found his spark again pretty quickly. Dib felt stupid for feeling bad for him. “I know you’d _think_ that it’s normal, that mighty Irken people would _deem you worthy of capture_. What you _don’t_ know is that the prison cells on board the Massive are meant to house only _traitors,_ _rebel leaders_, and _war prisoners_.”

“I’m clearly the last one.” Dib threw an arm over his face. “Do you hear what you’re saying? Which category do _you_ fit into, exactly?”

“_Silence!_ Let your superior finish speaking.” Dib closed his mouth, too delirious from lack of nutrition to do much else. “That’s better. Obedience looks good on you, _Dib_.”

An odd shiver worked its way up Dib’s spine. It had been a while since he’d heard his name spoken aloud, yeah, but something about the way the Irken had said it –

He quickly shut that thought right the fuck down.

“Anyways,” continued the alien, “what I’m trying to say is – Irkenkind doesn’t imprison our newly conquered races in _jails_, that’d be a waste of labor. They’re sent to various other planets where they can be of use, in factories, in warehouses, in food courts, wherever.”

_Aliens have food courts_, Dib thought feverishly.

“But there’s special cases. Sometimes my Tallest like to play a prank on the planet, just to see how _pathetic_ its population truly is.” Zim spoke slowly, deliberately, clearly savoring what he was about to say.

Dib’s stomach churned suddenly, his palms feeling damp, his tongue too big in his mouth. Details about his last day on Earth came rushing in in pieces, but he refused to look at them head-on.

“They’ll send down a transmission – showcasing their _awesome_, _mighty_ superiority, and they pretend that they _might_ spare the planet, but only if a sacrifice is chosen to be kept as a specimen for ‘research purposes’.” Zim snickered. “The implication being obviously, ‘send us somebody you hate, so we can torture them’. The Tallest have gotten some pretty interesting playthings this way.”

“It’s your turn to shut up, I think,” Dib grated out.

“Oh, what’s that? I’m no expert on Earth-pigs, but you sound upset, _Dib-Thing._”

Before Dib could formulate a rebuttal worthy of his rage, the alien decided to stop hiding itself.

The shadow of a metallic bug fell over Dib before he could process the faint red glow emitting from somewhere behind it, and suddenly he was confronted with a shockingly petite monster. It had the green skin, huge red eyes, and robotic enhancements that Dib had come to recognize as Irken, for sure, but this thing couldn’t have been more than four feet tall on its own feet. Even the spindly legs that emerged from its strange technological backpack didn’t make it look scarier, so much as they drew attention to the tininess of the package they transported.

“Oh,” Dib snorted, utterly pulled away from his anger by the sight before him. He was… so _small._ A few things clicked into place for Dib, and he found himself unable to contain his delirious laughter. “Oh, my god. And your leaders are… the ‘Tallest’… oh my god.”

He heard an angry huff before something whipped fast across his face.

“Fuck! What was that for?” He shouted; hand pressed to his face as he felt a line of blood well up. “Jesus – I got your message, okay, I heard you, I’m human garbage, I know.”

The alien’s four mechanical legs suddenly gave out beneath him, and he landed hard on his feet, quickly advancing until he had one gloved hand around Dib’s throat. Dib clawed at his hand on instinct, though he was still able to breathe – didn’t know if that was on purpose, or if the alien was simply too weak to apply any more pressure than that.

“_DO_ you get it, _Dib-pig_? I’m saying your people, out of every miserable life-form on the planet that you emerged on, chose _you_ to ship to some murderous aliens for dissection.” He tightened his grip, and Dib’s earlier uncertainty was answered as his airway was restricted. “How does that make you _feel_, you pitiful, ugly thing? To know that you’re unwanted by your _own_ people? To think that they want nothing more than to _rid_ themselves of you? Does it make you feel so very _small_?”

Dib struggled in earnest, kicking his legs in an attempt to throw the smaller creature off, but it simply moved to straddle his lap, where its other hand joined in the effort to strangle him. Dib grew exponentially more concerned for his life as his attempts to pry the Irken’s claws away continued to prove unfruitful. The ringing in his ears intensified, and is mouth flapped open and shut like a fish in a useless struggle for air. This seemed to amuse Zim, as Dib noticed distantly that he was laughing.

No, that wasn’t it, he realized.

“Does it make you feel small?” Zim’s shoulders were shaking, but he wasn’t laughing. Dib stopped struggling, head swimming, and just watched as globules of liquid formed in the red gleaming eyes that glared down at him.

_We’re the same._ Dib thought nonsensically.

After a minute that felt like eternity, Zim released his hold on Dib’s throat and shoved him away roughly, standing so that no part of them was touching once again. Dib, oddly, felt colder when he left. As he gasped for breath, he kept his eyes fixed on the alien, waiting for him to scamper off into the darkness of the high ceilings to hide like normal. To his surprise, it simply moved to the opposite corner and plopped down against the wall, staring at Dib with distrust.

“I hate you.” He said eventually. He had blinked away the moisture in his eyes.

“Oh, y-yeah?” Dib said, wincing at his raw voice. Zim grinned, exposing rows of perfectly pointed teeth. Dib scowled back, face flushed as heart working overtime to replenish his body with oxygen, nothing more. “Well – feeling’s mutual, you fucking psychopath.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Coughs*  
These boys got issues


	5. Sawdust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you think you’ll feel up to killing me soon?” Dib asked suddenly. “I can return the favor, if you want. We can die by the hands of our most hated enemies.”  
“What makes you think Zim shares your insane death-wish?” Zim pulled in his knees and tucked the Dib’s coat tighter around himself, scowling. He didn’t address the first question, wary for questions of his strength for fear that the human would exploit his weakness.  
“Just an offer. Shit sucks out here.” Dib shrugged, unperturbed. “I actually kind of want to live, though. I have some unfinished business. I thought you might be the same.”  
“Ohh-kayy,” Zim said suspiciously.  
“Listen, just hear me out, okay.”  
“Zim will hear nothing he does not want to hear.”  
“That’s the truth,” Dib muttered under his breath, though he quickly raised his hands in apology when Zim raked his claws noisily over the wall. “Sorry, jeez, look – if you’re not going to murder me, can you be helpful, just for a minute? You don’t even have to do anything – well, uh, kinda.”

Zim had never been more humiliated in his life. And by a _human_, no less. Zim had spent so many of his long years in exile on Foodcourtia watching them scuttle about like the cosmic ants they were. They were stupid, and unobservant, and undiscerning. So why was it, that their _worst_ specimen was pushing his buttons so efficiently? Why was it so impudent, so – _stupid_ in the things it said, the audacious _lies_ it made Zim’s superior antennae listen to?!

The only reason he hadn’t yet snuffed out the pitiful ember of a life was that he needed to save his energy until their feeding day. It _had_ to be close to the first of the month by now. They’d have to dump the pile of prisoner’s slop. Zim hated that the thought of eating prisoner’s food was enough to make his mouth water. But he was so hungry – his PAK’s nutrients weren’t enough anymore, and besides – the ship had begun faster-than-light travel a day ago, not even letting Zim have the minor comfort of recharging. Now, his PAK drew on his organic half’s resources to keep itself whirring along, further exacerbating his hunger.

After his last outburst, Zim hadn’t the energy to hide properly, settling unhappily on keeping as far from the human as the narrow confines of their cell would allow. This meant they simply glared at each other from 10 feet away, each of their backs pressed to their respective wall in a vain attempt to hide from the cold, each of them eyeing the other to make sure they wouldn’t try anything, but both of them silently knowing that their real problem wasn’t anything they could simply punch to death.

Yes, in the face of brutal, inhumane imprisonment, Zim was very nearly reduced to the level of a _human_. It was this weakness that his cellmate exploited, having realized, at some point, that Zim was in no fit state to start any more violent engagements. After a day of being angry at Zim for the whole attempted murder thing, Dib seemed to take on a new outlook, pestering his superior with annoying questions and comments, unbidden. It was doubly annoying, given the way it was incapable of ceasing its pathetic shivering.

“So… you can control the brightness of your uh, backpack, then?” The human asked, gesturing to Zim’s PAK with a shaking hand. Zim had long since given up trying to hide its glow. “I couldn’t see it for a long time.”

“Obviously I have control over my _PAK_, human.” Zim grumbled in response, knowing if he ignored the human he’d keep talking anyway, and figuring that talking about his superior self wasn’t the _worst_ way to spend his time at this point. “And don’t call it that – that’s redundant. What if I called your face your head-face? Stupid.”

Dib looked as if he wanted to say that he had _absolutely_ heard Zim say things similar, but he wisely held his tongue.

“So, the machinery is built into your physiology,” the human rambled on, “interesting. What makes it light up? Do you just… think about it?”

“Do you _think_ about pumping the blood through your so-easily-clogged arteries?”

Dib seemed to think for a moment.

“No, but there are processes that are involuntary until I decide to alter them. Like my breathing – my body does it on autopilot, but I can change it once I start paying attention to it. Is it like that?”

The Irken was taken aback by Dib’s thoughtful answer. Zim studied him for a long moment.

“That’s… similar.” He admitted at last. “The light is how excess energy is released from my PAK. If I… for lack of a better word, ‘hold it’ for periods of time, it goes dark, but that energy is released as heat instead. Inversely, I can channel the heat of my body to make it brighter. Not that I would need to.”

Dib made a face.

“Wait, you’re over there in _my coat_, but you can generate heat with your PAK? Are you _just_ an asshole, or are you also an idiot?”

“You’re the _endotherm_,” Zim spat, saying it like a slur. “And anyways – it’s very similar to holding your breath, in that after a while it tends to make Irkens lightheaded.”

“Your machinery gets overheated,” Dib translated. He stared hard at Zim for a long moment, once again nursing his untapped anger over Zim’s possession of his clothing. To be fair to the pitiful thing, the cell had only grown colder since the ship’s acceleration. Zim had been wise to steal from the idiot while he could.

“Do you think you’ll feel up to killing me soon?” Dib asked suddenly. “I can return the favor, if you want. We can die by the hands of our most hated enemies.”

“What makes you think Zim shares your insane death-wish?” Zim pulled in his knees and tucked the Dib’s coat tighter around himself, scowling. He didn’t address the first question, wary for questions of his strength for fear that the human would exploit his weakness.

“Just an offer. Shit sucks out here.” Dib shrugged, unperturbed. “I actually _kind of_ want to live, though. I have some unfinished business. I thought you might be the same.”

“Ohh-kayy,” Zim said suspiciously.

“Listen, just hear me out, okay.”

“Zim will hear _nothing_ he does not want to hear.”

“That’s the truth,” Dib muttered under his breath, though he quickly raised his hands in apology when Zim raked his claws noisily over the wall. “Sorry, jeez, look – if you’re not going to murder me, can you be helpful, just for a minute? You don’t even have to _do_ anything – well, uh, kinda.”

Zim narrowed his eyes. Dib sucked in a deep breath through his chattering teeth and exhaled slowly before he finished in a flurry.

“Just – can you hold in your light for a second, let me close to your PAK so I can warm up? Like you said, I’m an endotherm, and I can’t-“

“Filthy _human_,” Zim snapped in disgust, “why on _Irk_ would I help _you_?”

“I don’t know, maybe because the only reason you’re any better off than me is you have _my coat_, for one.”

“Zim can’t help that he’s so much stronger than a weakling earth-pig.” Zim sniffed, snuggling down in the coat just to rub it in. “If you’re so mad about it, you should be strong enough to hold on to your belongings.”

“I _could_ come take it,” Dib threatened. Zim tightened his grip before the Dib relented, “but I don’t want to. Let’s face it – we’re kind of in the same boat, at least right now,” the human tacked on, seeming to notice the eggshells he stood on for _once_. “we’re both cold, and hurt, and sore, and hungry. I know _I_ am. And to my knowledge, you were in here _before_ me, so I can’t imagine how _you’re_ doing.”

Zim focused on his PAK’s energy output until his back was shining blindingly. The Dib had to shield his eyes from it.

“Real mature. Look, Zim – you stand to benefit too, you know. Again, I’m an _endotherm_. I got that good warm blood.” Dib thumped the left side of his chest. “Having me nearby will be good for both of us.”

“_I don’t want you anywhere near me_.” Zim hissed, even as he felt the numbness invading his senses. This pride might kill him, but as far as he was concerned, it was worth it. “Touching you is a fate worse than death. And you have _nothing_ to offer me in return for such a _generous gift_ from Zim.”

Dib opened his mouth, closed it, gnawed on his bottom lip. Zim was right, of course, though he had to admit it was funny watching the human’s face dent in on itself as he tried to come up with agreeable terms.

“What if I – I let you punch me in the face?”

Zim blinked, entirely taken aback. His first thought was one of pleasure – of taking delight in watching this aggravating pig’s head whip back from the force of Zim’s fist. The second was a wave of indignant rage.

“Are you trying to imply that the mighty _Zim _needs permission to throw his fist at a worm like _you_??” He howled.

“Of course not,” the Dib said, far too diplomatically. “we both know that’s not true. I just want to give you the… the control over it.”

Zim studied the human closely, baffled by this nonsensical offer. Dib heaved a sigh and shifted until he was sat on his knees, leaning back against his feet with his palms upraised. If he felt any shame for his display of vulnerability, he was concealing it well. Zim thought, distractedly, that he may have liked it better if Dib had not put in that effort.

“Control? Over _you_? You think this is appealing?”

“Not ideal for either of us, I know,” Dib said, his unaffected façade slipping somewhat. “but it’s what I can offer. I know how much it must aggravate you, being in this situation with somebody like me, who’s so insufferable. But think of it – I could fight you, if you wanted, or put up a show of it, anyways - or I could just sit back, just like this, and let it happen. Whichever way, I’d be doing it because my Irken superior told me to. Wouldn’t that be _something_?”

The human became increasingly desperate as he went on, the clacking of his teeth interrupting him at times. He looked so pathetic, and he was working so hard to find something of worth to Zim… The Irken liked the parts of his speech that verged on begging the most, he decided. He ran his eyes over the human’s face. There was still a visible red line from Zim’s PAK legs, but other than that, it seemed only his face had escaped injury during the invasion. That would mean that all the wounds on his face would be from Zim… almost as if the invader had still gotten to have his part in _his_ invasion.

“You’re this desperate to live?” He said in a low voice. The Dib shuddered. “Crawl on your knees towards Zim. _Slowly! No funny business!”_

The human scowled, but did as he was told. Zim watched him curiously. As he grew closer, Zim could more easily watch his expressions change in the red light. The Irken hadn’t noticed, but this earthling had very defined features. Zim was especially intrigued by the dent in his forehead, sandwiched between his two dark eyebrows; it made the otherwise pitiful human look somehow intimidating.

“Do we have a deal?” The Dib asked, glancing away, seemingly uncomfortable with Zim’s close scrutiny. “If not, I’m moving back to my side of the cell.”

“Calm down, Dib-thing. I’m thinking.” Zim said quickly. He stood unsteadily, and advanced slowly towards the human. When it was on its knees like this, the earthling was closer to eye-level with Zim. In fact, it was looking _up_ at Zim. That realization made a strange warmth flood the Irken’s chest. He lifted one hand when he was within arm’s reach, grinning when the human flinched.

“W-well?”

“Zim admires your tenacity, if anything.” Zim snickered, enjoying the dark flush that spread over the human’s face. He thought for a second. “Very well. We have a deal, human. But I want you to offer your face up to me, hands behind your back, and keep your eyes closed. Then you clean up _any_ resulting mess from your _hideous_ flesh-sack, and _then_ you may use Zim’s superior physiology for warmth.”

Dib’s expression flattened like he was trying to silence any reaction to Zim’s words, which annoyed the Irken. He took another step forward and lifted one claw, gesturing with it pointedly. Dib’s face flickered between relief and sour indignance as he took the cue and lifted his chin until Zim could almost touch it.

The human absolutely glowered at Zim, but all the power in it was utterly undermined by his obedient posture. Zim felt amazing, watching it strain to keep still, anxiously awaiting the telltale movement in Zim’s arm that would bring him pain.

“I told you to close your eyes, put your hands behind your back.” Zim reminded him snidely. The human’s lip curled, but he obeyed without a retort, face dented inwards, all tense and full of resentment. Zim thought, nonsensically, that he could sustain himself forever on this moment of anticipation, subsist on this high alone. Realistically, however, he was cold, and he felt his strength draining with every moment, so he reluctantly brought an end to the delicious situation.

He threw his right fist outward, where it collided with Dib’s left cheek – the opposite side as the last injury, to help with symmetry, Zim reasoned – and the human’s head whipped back, tossing his dark hair wildly. He caught himself on his palms before he could fall, and he fixed an even glare upon the Irken as he raised on hand to wipe the blood from his face. He should be grateful; Zim had been far too weak to throw a full-strength blow, so the damage was minimal, just some light bruising under the break in the skin. Zim wondered how it would look as it healed, if it would become more or less noticeable. He hoped for the former.

As he watched blood dribble into the human’s grimacing mouth, Zim had to hand it to him – he _had_ managed to find something worth offering. Now Zim just had to honor his part of the deal, which would be far less pleasant.

“Let me use my coat to wipe my face,” The human demanded, gesturing to his lack of anything else. Zim took a step back, clutching at the fabric, scandalized. Dib sighed, grabbing at the long, flared coattails closest to him to dab the fresh blood from his face. Zim grimaced the whole time, though he did not move away. Better the coat than his sensitive Irken skin, he supposed.

The human glanced up awkwardly, lip still curled, and shifted slightly closer. At least he seemed just as upset with the situation as Zim. That made things… better?

“Satisfied?” Dib asked. His teeth were red. Zim wondered what would happen if he said no.

“…Zim is satisfied. For now.” He said anyway. Dib was close enough that Zim swore he could feel the warmth radiating from somewhere in his chest. As much as he craved respite from the cold, however, he was not going to make this humiliating situation worse by making it easy. He waited for the human to do... something.

“Okay,” Dib said, clearly uneasy as he shifted to sit crisscrossed on the floor, mere feet from Zim. He stared blankly ahead for a moment, seemingly as the present state of affairs fully occurred to him, then took a deep breath, and patted his thighs. “uh, could you just – orient yourself so your back is towards me, then do the ‘hold your breath’ thing?”

Zim glared at the human, antennae tucked flush against his scalp. He ground his teeth, sitting in mirror image to Dib before slowly shifting to turn around. They weren’t touching, to be fair, and Dib had let the Irken keep his coat, so there was still a layer of protection between them. All things considered, Dib was being unreasonably kind to Zim, seemingly aware of Zim’s genuine physical revulsion with touching the alien flesh. He was an idiot for it, though; Zim could feel the way that his body was wracked with shudders, despite the human’s attempts to repress them. He leaned down close to the PAK-sized protrusion under the coat and curved his shoulders inward in an attempt to absorb as much warmth as possible.

Zim felt himself relaxing as time went by and the human made no moves to harm him, and then remembered his part of the deal. The gentle whirring of his PAK grew slightly louder, and the pair of prisoners were engulfed in darkness. There was something comforting about that, coupled with the calming white noise and the satisfied sigh Dib let out in response.

Zim noticed, very abruptly, how very, very warm his back was and gnawed on his bottom lip. His tantalization only grew as Dib’s shudders slowed, and the human made the bold choice of extending both arms on either side of Zim – still not touching, just exposing the flesh to the orb of warmth emanating from Zim’s PAK.

Zim couldn’t take it anymore; he moved decisively backwards until the metal of his PAK was flush against the human’s chest. The change was instant and overwhelming; Zim’s limbs all went limp and his jaw slacked open, dizzy from the intense subversion of sensations. He heard himself make a noise – one that hideous, filthy liars _might_ call a whimper -and snapped his mouth shut, knowing the Dib must have heard it.

“See? Good for both of us.” Came the smug, unasked reply from the darkness immediately behind Zim’s antennae. Dib’s breath fanned warmth across the top of Zim’s head, where the sensation was most intense as opposed to the rest of his body, which was covered in the rubbery fabric of his uniform. “Told you.”

Zim was grateful for the lack of light, for saving him from Dib seeing the face he made in response to the human’s words.

“S-s-shut your mouth,” The human was no longer vibrating like a motor, Zim realized in horror, but _he_ was. He hissed under his breath, disgusted with himself, but unable to deny himself the tantalizing heat emanating from his cellmate.

He felt the edges of shame pressing in on him, suffocating him nearly as much as his desire to press himself into the human’s body, get closer, get warmer. Zim looked inward, stared at the shame, and dug his emotional heels in.

This was nothing, this was survival, this was Zim taking what he needed from somebody inferior to him. This was how he succeeded; this was his path to victory. There was no reason to feel shame. He was admitting no defeat here.

Zim repeated this mantra to himself as he reached out in the darkness. The human started as Zim took hold of his arms and placed them squarely around the Irken’s shoulders. His arms were tense for a moment, but they relaxed as Zim pushed himself further into the human’s lap.

“You p-p-prove yourself useful, h-human.” Zim said, authoritative tone significantly undercut by the distinct rumbling in his chest. His face burned. “I will only quell my light for an earth hour at a t-t-time. Then it will be _your_ turn to provide the warmth.”

Zim felt more than he heard the human chuckle behind him.

“I think I’m already doing a pretty good job of it, if your change of character means anything.” Zim’s face contorted into a scowl, and he jerked as if to pull away, but the human drooped its arms across the Irken’s chest and held him in place. “Hey, I have an idea. You have to hand it to me, I’ve had a few good ones. Trust me one more time.”

“You have had exactly 8/9ths of a good idea, and no more.” Zim pushed noncommittally at the arms wrapped around him, sighing when they didn’t budge. “What’s this idea.”

Instead of replying, Zim felt the human shift his arms until he was tugging the coat off the Irken’s shoulders. He relented at Zim’s hiss, but didn’t let go, as if waiting for permission. Zim went quiet, pleased how only then did the human complete the task. Another long moment passed and Zim held his breath as he felt he human’s hands ghost near his waste. Whatever he had intended to do, he opted out last minute, instead asking quietly, “Can you turn to face me?”

It was only the fact that Zim could hear the flush in his voice that he complied, silently, slipping one booted leg over each side of the human’s legs. This position was the most hideous necessary evil Zim had ever been forced into accepting, he began thinking, but then the human moved to wrap the coat around both of their shoulders lengthways, and he gave up on thinking.

His body moving on the blind instinct to get warm, Zim found himself burrowing into the thin fabric of the human’s shirt, pressing his face into the broad chest before him. The human squirmed, evidently taken by surprise by the Irken’s response, but only snorted in silent laughter as he carefully placed his arms around the Irken’s back beneath the coat, pressing the long, exposed planes of flesh to the heated metal of Zim’s PAK.

The coat served to insulate the heat, protect them from the chill of the room. It also sealed them into a dark cocoon of a truce, where Dib ignored the points of claws and boots digging into his skin, and Zim ignored the frequent tickle of the human’s breath across his antennae. As their bodies acclimated, Dib’s vibrations slowed to a halt, while Zim’s only increased. He gave up trying to silence them, just letting his face go slack as he absolutely drained the human of his endothermic privilege.

The first awkward moments lasted ages, but eventually both parties lowered their guards enough to be quietly grateful for the company. The human secretly found comfort in the pur-like sounds emanating from the small creature, and the alien secretly enjoyed the drum of the human’s heart. Neither of these things were said, but both were understood as they maintained their closeness, even as the warmth became a bit claustrophobic.

Zim wondered suddenly about the last time he’d been touched in a kind way. His superiors on Foodcourtia wouldn’t lift a hand unless it was to hurt him; they’d kick his ankles to hurry him along, or slap his hands away when he was messing things up, or they’d pour hot grease into his clothes… The last ‘person’ to be affectionate with Zim would probably actually be a robot. Gir used to be very touchy-feely, but… Zim had no idea what had become of the little robot, hadn’t seen him since he’d been taken onto the Massive. He wasn’t worried, per-se – he’d learned from experience that _nothing_ could take the little guy down – but he definitely missed the idiot more than he’d anticipated.

The Dib adjusted his arms to be more comfortable, and Zim took the opportunity to shift the coat slightly in an attempt to breathe less… recycled air. He was glad he did so – it allowed him to witness a thin tube snake out of the high ceiling and descend into their cell. Zim pulled back and smacked at the Dib’s arms for release as he recognized what was happening. On cue, the tube appeared to vomit a pile of slop, spraying wildly like a hose with a nasty sound before the flow stopped and it returned to the ceiling as quickly as it had arrived.

“What was that?” Dib asked obliviously, head turning frantically as his inferior human eyes failed to witness their feeding. “I heard something, are we okay?”

“How did you survive on a planet that is covered in darkness for twelve hours at a time?” Zim wondered aloud, allowing his light to return. He watched the human adjust to his new sight, took no small delight in his revulsion with their food. “Be grateful human, even prisoner’s slop is better than anything you call food.”

Zim stood up in the human’s lap – earning a grunt of pain as he stepped carelessly on his folded legs - and moved to sit before the pile of slop. It smelled like burnt hair, but the pile before him was obviously as cold as the air around it. Zim knew from his years of training that the slop would contain most vital nutrients he needed for survival, but would be utterly devoid of and positive flavors or textures. He was in no position to be picky, but as he began to reach to scoop some up, he found himself retching anyways.

“Oh, so it’s not just bad-for-another-species level bad, huh? It’s also bad-for-Irkens bad.” Dib surmised, having observed Zim’s obvious disgust. Zim glared at him over his shoulder. Dib snorted. “Hey, makes sense. On earth we’d give prisoners the worst shit to eat, too. I don’t know why being in space would change that.”

“It’s perfectly edible, you wuss,” Zim snapped, making a point of shoveling down a hefty mouthful. It felt like sawdust in his mouth, but as he swallowed, his squeedly spooch felt like it was singing. He nearly groaned with the sensation before doubling back in, utterly ignoring the texture and flavor and focusing in on the feeling of his hunger leaving him.

“They really just dump it all on the floor for ya, don’t they?” Dib said, voice peculiar. 

Zim glanced over his shoulder while not halting in his feast. tThe human stared at the pile before him, clearly uneasy. Zim realized that he had no idea if the food was even edible for humans. Zim’s own research had not made human nutrition any easier to understand – he was still horrified and baffled by the things they ate – and had no idea how such a repulsive species would handle anything other than their own grotesque creations. Would the human get ill? Would its organs expand, explode? Truth be told, Zim would find all these scenarios very amusing, if not for the fact that he unfortunately had found a use for the endotherm.

Dib reached out a hesitant hand a collected a bit of slop on the tip of his index finger. It did not sizzle or burn as Zim’s flesh did when it encountered human food – unfair – but the human looked appalled nonetheless. That expression did not change as he lifted it to his nose, nor when he gave the food a tentative lick with his odd flat tongue.

Dark eyes found their way to Zim, and the Irken realized that he’d been staring; he quickly turned his back and resumed eating with gusto.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea what’s _in_ this,” Dib asked, tone already betraying his lack of hope.

“Nuh-trients,” Zim grunted unhelpfully through his mouthful. The human laughed mirthlessly, flicking the slop off his finger. Zim swallowed and grinned over his shoulder. “Don’t think Zim will hold back his appetite just because you’re here. If you really want to stop starving, I suggest you dig in.”

The Irken made good on his promise, really going to town on the pile of slop, tiny fists carrying load after load of joyless sustenance into his eager mouth. After a moment, he was even able to convince himself that it was delicious. He kept on, delighting in feeling full, though he was distantly aware of his companion simply sitting nearby, just watching him.

Zim felt suspicion rising in him. The human had too great of a desire to live to be indulging in this kind of fruitless skepticism. What was his game? Was a slow death by starvation really that much worse than eating something unfamiliar?

Whatever. That was his issue. Zim fully turned his back on the human, forgetting even the concept of shame as he continued to scrape slop off the dirty cell floor.

Before long, the entire pile was gone, and Zim was sliding his index finger around the remnants, hoping for a bit more to last him until the next feeding. There hadn’t been much slop to begin with – maybe enough to fill two smoothie cups – but its entirety was within Zim’s organs now. He sat back happily, hands slapping onto his overfull abdomen. He felt as victorious as if he’d physically brawled his cellmate for the food, but without the soreness that would accompany such a fight. It was a good day to be Zim. His head swung to level the human with a shit-eating grin.

The human didn’t look appropriately defeated. In fact, Zim realized belatedly, it was staring at Zim so strangely, head crooked, dark eyes concealed by the shine on his glasses. He was gnawing thoughtfully on his bottom lip.

“Too late for rrrr-regrets,” Zim laughed, the contented purr in his chest becoming something like a hiccup. He pressed his hands to his neck, enjoying the odd vibration of his own voice. “Zzz-Zim already eat – ate it all. Ha-_ha!_”

The human shifted closer, and Zim’s eyes narrowed. _Had the Dib gotten… taller_? No, that wasn’t it. Zim had slid lower onto the ground. His back was flesh against the ground, head barely held up by his neck, which was feeling increasingly like rubber. He made an attempt to right his posture, but quickly surrendered the effort, letting his head slap against the ground to join the rest of his jelly-like body. He flapped his arms so that his hands slapped against his sides, and each time it provided him with a ticklish sensation. He found this so very _funny, _suddenly, and couldn’t help giggling on the floor.

The human-shaped shadows monster above him grew nearer, and suddenly he felt external forces poking and prodding at his body. These touches tickled as well, only serving to worsen his laughing fit. 

“I thought so.” Came a grim voice above him. Zim’s eyes slipped back open – when did they close? – and he saw a blurry outline of Dib’s frowning face.

“That I’d – Zim told you he’d eat it all, hyoo- human, no surprises.” His voice felt as rubbery as his limbs. “You’re not – not a smart one, after all, huh Dib-stink? You’re – you’re a big idiot.”

“I guess you _did_ say that you’ve never been in this situation before,” Dib mused, ignoring Zim’s ramblings. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with his right hand, but the other was still on Zim’s arm, a pool of warmth. Zim wanted his cocoon of heat back. He mustered the strength to fling one arm outwards, where it slapped against the Dib’s thigh. The human glanced down, exposing his tense expression. “Zim, how do you feel?”

“_Cold,_” The Irken whined, repeating his motion of slapping the human’s leg. “if you’re not… not going to do any-anything else, can you turn back into a – nest, Dib-idiot? Dibidiot. Didiot.”

“Turn back into a nest,” Dib repeated, deadpan. Why did he look so concerned?

“I don’t understand you,” Zim complained. “you wouldn’t stop f-fussin’, about how _mad_ you were about Zim stealing your… garbagey… ration bars… they gived – they gave us food, okay, and now – _now!_ Now you’re _too good_ to eat it. Even though you… weren’t _too good_ to be a nest. You were a nest for Zim.”

“Zim, listen, I think they-“ Dib began urgently, but Zim was upset now, didn’t want to hear it.

He gathered the strength to flip himself over once, twice – he rolled his body until his upper half was firmly resting in the human’s lap. He sighed deeply, relishing the heat, and mashed his arms back into the flesh of Dib’s thighs.

“You’re not too good for Zim,” He repeated deliriously, tilting his head to press his cheeks into the Dib’s legs. “Didiot human doesn’t know better. Everybody – everyone is too good for Zim.”

Zim felt the human’s breath catch, and wondered at it. A moment later, there was the most hesitant touch of human skin on the top of his head. Earlier, Zim wouldn’t have hesitated to bite the offending limb right off its inferior host, but now, all the Irken could do was purr harder, rubbing its head upward to encourage the touch. The human’s hands stroked across his scalp, carefully avoiding his antennae, alternating between pressing his full, warm palm into Zim’s chilled flesh and pulling back to lightly trace circles near where human ears would be.

“That’s… better…” Zim sighed, and the human’s hands stilled. The Irken opened his eyes, annoyed, and he struggled to maintain eye contact with the still-worried human. “_What_ is the problem, hyooman?”

“You don’t feel… a bit odd, right now, Zim? Nothing seems a bit unusual?” Dib exhaled heavily in annoyance at the blank look of his cellmate. “You typically this snuggly? This baby-proof? This… calm?”

“Whaddarya even trying to _say_, Zim is a _delight-_”

“They drugged the food, Zim.” The alien’s mouth snapped shut, his brow furrowing. “They starved us for so long to make sure we’d eat anything in front of us without questioning it. But they want us mailable, easy to mess with.”

“You…” Zim’s hazy mind tried to untangle his thoughts. In the midst of his cloud of delirium, there was suddenly a rock made of betrayal. “You… knew this. You knew they’d… do this… You let Zim… you let me eat-”

“I suspected,” Dib said hurriedly, and began stroking at Zim’s head again. The Irken knew that the human was taking advantage of Zim’s distractibility, but couldn’t help leaning into the touch. “I also had no idea if it would be edible for me, but I knew there was a chance that they’d tamper with it. I couldn’t risk both of us being… out of it, so, yeah, I let you take that bullet for me.”

Zim was aware that there was moisture in his eyes, and before he could blink, a human hand was gently wiping the tears away. The hands were so nice, but they were burning. Zim felt safe, but also like he was in the mouth of a beast; he was comforted and horrified in a way that he couldn’t process in a meaningful way. His own hands went to still the human’s, but when he felt them in his grasp, all he could do was pull them down until they were pressed flat against his chest.

There was so much happening, and Zim could only seem to focus on the sensations before him. If he let himself ruminate on the Dib’s words, he felt as if he were being drawn slowly into a black hole in the lonely vacuum of space, so he chose to forget them for the moment.

“You’ll pay,” Zim said dreamily, shoving away from Dib to fix him with the goofiest version of a glare. “Z-Zimmy - Zim’ll be back in fighting shape _eventually_, and you’ll have to aaaanswer. But for now.” The alien clambered into the human’s lap once again, pressing their chests together, shoving his head into the crook of the human’s neck and taking both Dib’s hands to lace them together behind his back. “Go back to being a helpful nest.”

The human seemed at a loss for words, staying so very still as he was manhandled into a more convenient shape for snuggling. Eventually he relaxed, seemingly understanding that he’d get no meaningful conversation from his cellmate in his current state, and his hands began moving soothingly over Zim’s cold flesh. After a long moment, Zim became suddenly fed up with the lack of complete warmth, pulling back to rip off his gloves with his teeth before he pushed back in, tugged the human’s thin covering upwards, and thrusted his cold arms around the human’s bare torso. The human jumped at the contact, bumps rising on his skin in time with his wordless noise of protest, both of which Zim paid no mind, feverishly happy with his situation. He squirmed to nestle in more, and thought he felt an odd lump beneath him. He frowned, shifting again, and this time Dib placed hands authoritatively on his hips and commanded him to stop immediately. Zim pouted silently, hooking his claws into warm human skin to distract himself. The human coughed.

“So, are you, uh – purring?” He asked offhandedly, reflexively tightening his grip on the Irken when he felt Zim tense. “Just curious. I make noise when I’m cold, and you’re the opposite, huh? I just think that’s funny.”

“Yes, everything is _so_ funny.” Zim agreed, voice muffled by Dib’s chest. “You’re so damn _curious_ about things, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” The human shrugged, jostling the alien. “Not that it’s served me particularly well.”

The Irken ruminated on those words, feeling lethargic in the oozing warmth of this tall, odd creature. It had certainly surprised him thus far. He hadn’t expected it to survive this long at all, and definitely didn’t consider the lengths it might go to for that end. It was quick thinking, rational, and… it viewed Zim as a peer. That last point was more of an annoyance to Zim; the Irken was _clearly_ the human’s superior, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Probably not.” Zim replied eventually, and added under his breath, “But it will serve me better.”

Even in the haze he currently found himself in, Zim was determined. He would not succumb to this monstrosity of a bureaucratic error. He was going to survive it, and he had decided that this human was going to help him in whatever ways Zim needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *checks 'snuggle for warmth' off a clipboard and nods to self*


	6. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was once again ‘Dib’s turn’ to make warmth, which meant the red glow of Zim’s PAK was back, illuminating both their faces under the cover of the coat. The loss of the PAK warmth was saddening, but akin to losing the heat from a laptop left on too long; and it felt like a majority of the culminated heat remained trapped under the coat. That didn’t stop the Irken from shoving every surface of its small frame into Dib’s skin, though.

**Dib**

If somebody had asked a 10-year-old Dib what he saw himself doing in fourteen years, he never could have _possibly_ guessed at his future reality. Okay, well – he would have gotten the alien invasion part right, but that would be it. He never would have thought he’d be sacrificed, or imprisoned, or – in his current situation, which he much preferred to focus on than anything prior. He didn’t want to think about the memories he’d been gradually able to access as his mind had time to process them. He didn’t want to think about his last moment’s on earth, or his first moments aboard the ship. He didn’t even want to think about his embarrassing display that had earned him the _privilege_ to his current situation, didn’t want to reexamine his memory of Zim standing imposingly over him, of Dib’s own strange feelings as he anticipated being punched in the face. The immediate moment was in his control, relatively speaking, and it was – well, it was interesting, if nothing else.

A drugged Zim was a lot more honest, if that was even possible. Gone were his attempts at being coy about needing Dib to stay warm as he burrowed into the human’s flesh like a tick. If circumstances were different – very different – Dib may even have considered it ‘cute’- the desperation, the strange cicada-like purring, the occasional complaints of Dib’s smell or sweat.

As it were, Dib was increasingly becoming more fed up with the situation. He was warmer now, sure, but that was about as good as his condition got. The irritating little bug wasn’t being shy any more, meaning all the sharp edges of his little form were pressed unabashedly into Dib’s healing body. His wounds were crunchy with dirt – and likely infection – and the pain had been getting in the way of his ability to sleep restfully. He was glad he’d abstained from the ‘prisoners’ slop’, but his stomach and head were both screaming at him to eat something _now_, hallow throbs echoing across his whole body.

It was once again ‘Dib’s turn’ to make warmth, which meant the red glow of Zim’s PAK was back, illuminating both their faces under the cover of the coat. The loss of the PAK warmth was saddening, but akin to losing the heat from a laptop left on too long; and it felt like a majority of the culminated heat remained trapped under the coat. That didn’t stop the Irken from shoving every surface of its small frame into Dib’s skin, though.

The human kept his arms chastely around the Irken’s back, returning the favor of stealing heat, staring resolutely at the back of his eyelids, unsure how else to deal with the aggressive switch of attitude between himself and his cellmate. It wasn’t like he didn’t _get_ it – it wasn’t his first choice to snuggle up to somebody from the race that had literally destroyed his planet – but it was chafing at his resolve to see this little creature as part of the evil majority that had ruined his life.

The thing that had poorly attacked him, then properly attacked him – then showed him mercy? – and had now surrendered his pride like this… it was strange, and confusing, and challenging to Dib. Maybe it wasn’t like the others of its kind. Maybe, just maybe, it was as big of a loser as Dib was. That was an odd thing to hope for, but an ally wasn’t. Dib’s mind was scrambling for arguments he could present to the Irken, reasons they could help get each other out of this place. He couldn’t be worse off with a co-conspirator than he was without. Surely, the alien was the same. Surely.

“You’re sweaty.” Suddenly the Irken’s claws were pushing roughly at Dib’s arms, pulling them down and pressing his face into the dry flesh of Dib’s upper arms instead of the area near his armpit where he’d previously nestled. “Nasty. Why do humans create so much water?”

“I can’t help it.” Dib quipped, not really caring. He shifted one arm to fan his chest in the zone Zim had pressed up against, grimacing at his own stink. Zim’s antennae pricked up, and he pulled Dib’s arm down once again, startling the human. “Jeez, I said I can’t help it. What’s your deal?”

The Irken moved to examine the round flesh of Dib’s left bicep, staring hard at the injury in the glow of his PAK. Then he was laughing, shaking with humor until he fell backwards, out of the cocoon of warmth the two had created.

“What??” Dib asked frantically, patting down the skin of his arm, flinching at the crunch of scabbed skin and the hot throb of a healing wound. He turned his head, realizing he could finally look at the damage in the light of Zim’s PAK. What he saw turned his stomach.

“What the fuck,” Dib gasped, dragging his fingers across his new body modification. The first layer of horror was realizing he had been physically branded, seeing the deep harsh laser burns that cut the Irken symbol and a line of Irken text into the side of his bicep. The second layer of horror was realizing _where_ this new body mod was placed. Dib’s breathing quickened, and he was hyperventilating a second later. “what the _fuck_.”

“Our leaders have a _good_ sense of humor,” Zim chimed in obliviously, still giggling on the floor. He rolled to grin and point at Dib. “It – it says ‘top scientist’, under there, under the brand, but like – with a spelling error, so it’s... it’s like it’s sarcastic. Get it? Like – aww, how cute, he thinks he’s a-”

Dib couldn’t hear the rest of Zim’s statement. He was curled in on himself, still covered by the coat, face mashed into his hands to try and keep air in in lungs for longer than a millisecond at a time. He became distantly aware of something tugging at the coat, but he couldn’t react to it. Almost as if in response, the tugging changed into a firm weight on his shoulder. The pressure helped to ground him, and he blindly reached for a hand to tether him to the present. His mouth was moving, he was saying something, he thought, but the sounds were meaningless to his ears as he rode out the worst of his panic.

The hand on his shoulder alternated to stroking across his back. Dib’s mind produced a memory from college, of friends rubbing his back as he hurled all two sips of 4loko he’d ingested. This juxtaposition distracted him from his attack, made him choke out a strangled laugh in spite of everything. Only then was he able to hear past the ringing in his ears. Zim was – had been, it seemed – talking to him in a low, urgent voice.

“…Calm down, it’s not as bad of a wound as you think, it’s pretty shallow and looks to be healing fine, you’ll be marked but not inhibited-” the Irken tripped on his words, very apparently uncertain in what to do but clearly uncomfortable with Dib’s sudden loud misery. “I understand it’s not particularly funny to _you_, but I swear, it’s a good joke, and if you’re illiterate you might think it’s _serious_, and-”

“Zim,” Dib wheezed, straining to even out his breathing. He sat up, tugging the coat off his shoulders and facing the alien. His eyes felt swollen shut, and he was sure he must have looked ghastly. Whatever his face showed, it made the Irken’s head jerk back, and his antennae flatten against his head suddenly. Dib pushed his glasses back up his nose and wiped his face, looking tiredly at the alien. “Can you shut up for a minute?”

He reached forward and tucked the alien under his chin, relishing the warmth before pressing the side of his face flat against the top of Zim’s head. The invader didn’t fight it, but went along curiously, shivering and letting out one of those odd purrs as the heat of Dib’s flushed cheek made contact with his chilled, pebbly skin. Dib allowed himself to hold this contact for the span of four long, deep breaths. He pulled in for the count of 8, held it for 9, released to 10. He felt his hands slowly stop shaking.

At the end of this little episode he coughed, leaning back and putting both hands on Zim’s shoulders like a junior year prom date.

“Uh, thanks. I’m okay now, I think.” He shifted uncomfortably when the Irken remained in his lap, staring at him strangely. He realized a bit belatedly that it had curled its tiny fists into the sides of his shirt once again, and cleared his throat. “Um, if it’s okay, I think I need a minute to breathe.”

Zim’s antennae shot up and he scowled, quickly pulling his hands away and standing. Dib’s hand shot out before he could think to stop it, holding gently onto Zim’s arm.

“Thank you,” he reiterated, sincerely. Zim snorted, but seemed appeased, merely stepping back to give Dib the requested space, while staying nearby.

_Is he waiting nearby because he’s worried about me?_ Dib wondered, instantly feeling silly. _Or because I’m warm and he needs to stay near me to keep from dying. _

That was probably it. Dib remembered the feeling of Zim’s skin when he’d first touched it; his skin was smooth and slightly pebbled, like snake skin, but cold as frozen pennies, and oddly hard to the touch. As they’d huddled for warmth, Zim’s skin had – relaxed? It had softened, as if the icicles on scales had melted.

“I… didn’t think it still hurt that bad,” Zim said hesitantly, a bit coldly for Dib’s taste, but he still appreciated the change in their dynamic where they could at least talk like this. “the standard branding lasers are only designed to hurt an extreme amount when the subject is actively being branded… and the regular amount of agony afterwards is typically contained to three days. You humans have an equivalent, I believe, so-”

Dib laughed rudely. “Yeah, they’re called tattoos. Jesus, that’s – everything is so _funny_, you know? All the damn time.”

Zim stared at the human uneasily, waiting for any kind of explanation, or for the human to stop acting crazy. Dib wondered irritably what Irken mental health was like, or if that was something that they were even interested in. It

“Yeah, I have a few tattoos.” He said eventually, taking off his glasses turning them over in his hands, studying them. “I wanted a sleeve once, but I found out my pain tolerance isn’t that high. I have a bigfoot footprint on the side of my calf, and a little moth man on my ribs. But my first one is definitely my favorite. My dad took me to get it.”

Zim cocked his head to the side.

“Uhh. Wow – my… biological creator that raised me? We’re… not really that close, actually. But we were, when I was younger. When I turned 18, he asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I wanted a tattoo of this stupid design of a cartoon alien and - I fully expected him to tell me to grow up and ask what _practical_ _thing_ he could get me instead, but – he was… down with it. He helped find a place and paid for it and - he and my sister went and made fun of me while I got stabbed with a needle for an hour and a half. It was awesome.”

“It seems you have fond memories of the practice,” Zim said, making a face. “What’s one more body marking?”

Dib heaved a sigh and dragged his nails down the fresh brand on his bicep. He could see parts of the old design beneath it. Zim’s eyes followed the action and he frowned, seeming to understand. Dib was glad for that; he didn’t think he could keep his resentment in check if he had to explain to Zim that _his people_ had branded him on top of the most meaningful gift from his presumably dead father. Not to mention the obvious horror of being stripped of one’s own bodily autonomy.

“What’s the _point_ of me,” Dib asked suddenly, rubbing at his eyes before putting his glasses back on. “like – me being here? It’s been like a _week,_ I think, since they dumped me in here. They haven’t killed us, but they haven’t – _done_ anything, like torture or whatever, unless my subconscious is doing _such_ a good job at repressing it and you’re a delusion or-“

“_Be quiet_,” Zim rolled his eyes. “the Tallest will get to you when they have time. They keep playthings to test the limits of their species, so it’s more fun to keep them in their most vulnerable state at all times. Minimizes risk to the Empire and maximizes the fun deprived antics. “

“Oh, will they, Zim?” Dib snapped. “Will they ‘get me to me when they have time’? Great. What exactly does that mean.”

“I’m not the Tallests!” Zim whined, pouting. “Maybe it means making you fight another species. Maybe it means you make their snacks for all time. Maybe it means you’re their footrest. Zim doesn’t know.”

“What _do_ you know?” Dib huffed.

“I know _plenty_, human.” Zim slurred. He was seeming more and more normal by the moment, at least as far as his speech patterns went. “It’s just a matter of what _you_ have to offer in return.”

“What, you want me to let you punch me again?” Dib snorted humorlessly. “That really get your rocks off the first time?”

The alien didn’t laugh. He stared hard at Dib for a long moment.

“I want to know how badly you want to live.” He said simply.

The two studied each other as Dib wondered what the Irken was really asking. If it was as simple as the question he was literally presented with, then –

“I have to find my family. My dad, my sister. We left off on a bad note. I absolutely have to find them and make sure they’re safe, at the very least.” Dib swallowed. “This is my honest answer. I have to live, to escape, no matter what.”

Zim chewed on that answer, seeming satisfied. He leaned forward and threw the coat around Dib’s shoulders, catching the taller creature and pulling it back down into close proximity in the darkness. With nothing else to do, and with Zim’s brief period of sobriety seemingly passing, the two of them drifted back to sleep.

Dib awoke to the angry grumbling of his stomach.

It had been a full day – probably – since Zim had demolished their pile of food, and it didn’t look like the effects of the drugs were wearing off soon, judging by the way the Irken was softly singing and clinging to Dib’s chest from _under_ his tee. The Irkens would expect him to also be so loopy, he realized, and wondered if they were observing them in the darkness, watching to see how Irken drugs effect human biology. Maybe they saw Dib not eat, and they’re not too happy about it. Maybe they didn’t know Dib hadn’t eaten, but they think he’s immune, and they’re bored by that. Dib’s mind turned over uselessly like an engine failing to start. His eyes began to water from frustration as another hunger pain wrecked him. Maybe they were just going to let him starve to death.

As if the walls of the ship itself could hear Dib considering giving up the ghost, an enormous hole opened in the formerly seamless wall before him. Zim, hidden under both Dib’s coat and his shirt, was unable to see the bulky silhouette standing in the center of the new blinding source of light.

“Human… thing.” Said this figure, and its shadow moved as it extended one arm to point Dib’s way. “Your presence is commanded by the Tallest. You will get up now.”

Dib felt Zim begin to squirm under his clothes, having heard the new voice, and panicked, not wanting his plan unveiled by the idiotic and now-loose-lipped smaller alien. As the Irken shifted to try and escape his cozy cage, Dib made a decision. He stood, looping one arm around the tiny alien, and did an about-face so he was turned away from the new Irken.

“Too bright!” He yelled, making Zim jump and begin to struggle and complain. “Oooh, aaah!” Dib groaned loudly to cover the sound, meanwhile dramatically shrugging out of his coat and wrapping the small alien in it as covertly as he could. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve seen light! I can’t… it hurts too badly!”

“Dib-Beast, what are you doing?” Zim asked, confused voice muffled by the layers of fabric. “That’s a guard, you have to let me talk to-”

“I-I can’t see any more! Have you blinded me, you _monsters_?!” Dib wailed, really laying it on thick, and threw his coat-wrapped-alien off to the side like a bowling ball. He kept his eyes fixed on the small dark mass as it hit the ground – he felt only slightly bad about how hard – and to his relief, it seemed Zim was too weak and silly to untangle himself too quickly.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Grumbled the Irken guard behind him. Dib heard him take a step forward and hurriedly turned to face him once again, arms up to indicate he wasn’t actually going to resist this.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! My human eyes just don’t adjust well to-” Dib yelled as he was suddenly pricked hard on the arm with some unseen metal weapon. The guard chuckled maliciously.

“Tell the science-types. I don’t care. Now move it.”

Dib scowled but did as he was told, slowly moving to follow the silhouette into the blinding light in the hallway. He cast a furtive glance backwards before he was fully out of the cell, and caught sight of two glowing eyes in the darkness. Dib swallowed hard, unsure why he felt so guilty as he left his cellmate behind.

He couldn’t dwell on that, though, there was too much to think about right now. The guard snapped some magnetic cuffs around Dib’s wrists – a fact that distressed Dib, who had hoped that him being supposedly drugged-up would be suppression enough – and shoved him roughly forward.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he found himself unwillingly impressed – and depressed – by the obvious might of the ship he rode on. Zim had to have been right – no ordinary jail would be so… fancy. The hallways were tall, arched, sleek and shiny and seemingly endless. In fact, once the wall closed up behind Dib, he was unable to tell where his cell was just moments before. No easily-found cells make it a lot harder to plan prison breaks, he guessed. He wasn’t allowed to really marvel or wonder about much; the guard’s brisk pace wouldn’t allow it.

His armed escort was a good foot taller than Zim, but still shorter than Dib, a fact that seemed to annoy the Irken, if his frequent disgusted glances were anything to go by. This Irken’s eyes were light blue, as were the accents on his uniform, a stark contrast from the pink and red Dib had begun to associate with the species, thanks to Zim. _Not_ unlike Zim was the utter and complete contempt that he had for his human captive.

“Keep _up_.” He snapped, not for the first time, as Dib’s limping pace grated on his nerves. He walked slightly ahead – likely a weird dominance thing – but became quickly enraged if the human fell more than a pace behind him.

“I’m _weak_, I’m sorry,” Dib said, fighting the urge to be rude and nasty, as he assumed aggression wouldn’t be possible under the effects of their drugs. “can we walk a little slower?”

The guard scoffed and pressed a button on a device on his wrist. Dib howled in pain as volts of electricity brought him to his knees.

“Yeah, you like that? Keep the Tallests waiting and you’ll have more of _that_ to look forward to.”

Dib grit his teeth and pulled himself to his feet, glaring at the floor. The guard chuckled and began moving again. Dib followed, ignoring the pain radiating throughout his body and making sure to keep up the rest of the way down the long hallway.

Finally, when he was getting flashbacks of the Shining due to the looping halls, they arrived at the end of the wing, which was marked elaborately with sharp curls and spires of metal. Dib noticed the guard press another button on his wrist and covertly speak into it, and a moment later, the ornate shutters slid up, revealing a set of bars that then opened like teeth, allowing them entry into what Dib had to assume was the ship proper. Sure enough, as soon as they passed into this area, there were suddenly a lot more people… well, irkens… hustling about. He must have had to push his way past a hundred of them, each shorter than him, with various hues of eyes glancing his way. None of them seemed terribly interested, especially when they noticed his escort, at which point they typically made a point of getting back to work.

As he was forced through the crowds of aliens down the corridor, Dib wished he was a bit shorter, so it wouldn’t be the most noticeable thing in the world if he were to bolt. But no, he would be the fucking _skyscraper_ making a run for it. Easily spotted, even more easily taken down, especially in his current state, which was _not_ being helped by all this walking.

Mercifully, after twenty minutes of pushing their way through the crowds, they arrived at a raised silver platform, Dib scrambling on board after more threats from his escort. Once they were both stood atop it, the guard twisted his wrist device again and pressed his hand into a raised column, prompting guard rails to spring up around the edges, penning them in. The platform then rose out of the floor with an odd warbled sound, and began to glide above the crowds towards their destination. Dib heaved a relieved sigh and dared to sit, eyeing the guard to make sure he wouldn’t be punished for it, which it seemed, for the moment, he wouldn’t be.

As they moved – shockingly quickly for such a smooth ride – Dib made mental notes of the ship’s layout. Since arriving in the main wing of the ship, there were a _lot_ more doors, hallways, and huge glass walls displaying the terrifying expanses of space. As the platform continued on, Zim was able to scope out the outside surroundings of the ship. There wasn’t much detail for him to decipher – the stars and various celestial bodies were blurred and warped, as if passing very fast – but as the platform made its turns Dib was able to realize that this ship, the one he was on, was only one of many – the swarm of other ships that Dib had watched descend upon Earth from below all followed this ship, each of them clearly marked with that hauntingly familiar triangular insignia. This ship he was on… the “Massive”, Zim had called it… was the mothership. And wow, they had awful naming conventions.

“Get up.” The guard grunted, prodding Dib before he could comply. “They’re excited to play with you. Don’t keep them waiting.”

Dib stared up at the enormous doors into the next room and swallowed hard, but before his escort could move to touch his wrist again, he gathered the nerve to stand and exit the platform. The guard nodded with a self-satisfied grin and motioned to two other armed Irkens on either side of the door.

These twin guards moved in unison to heft the heavy doors wide open, and Dib walked through before any of them had time to think he needed any encouragement.

The doors fell closed behind him with a mighty thud, sealing the human inside. The entryway he stood in was huge, very clean, and matched the rest of the ship’s interior in color-pallet and aesthetic. Ahead of him was one path, which seemed to be illuminated by flickering purple and red lights further in. Dib pressed both of his fists into his chest as if he could massage his heart into calming down, and slowly made his way deeper into the Tallests’ chambers.

As he rounded the corner into the inner chamber – some sort of… living room, to use human equivalents – he had to fight not to roll his eyes.

There was a huge sofa in the center of the room, placed before a wall of screens, each of which seemed to show a different planet’s surface. Laid out upon that sofa were two enormous creatures, absolutely stuffing their faces with food served off the heads of some pitiful-looking Irkens. The Tallests – aptly named, Dib conceded, as they looked to be around 9 feet tall – were laid out carelessly, tangled in each other’s bodies, looking incredibly bored both by their “TV show”, as well as the efforts of their servants. One of them – the Red one – took the lid off of a beverage on the tray and emptied it onto the head of the nearest table-headed Irken, then glanced quickly at his Purple comrade, who began laughing on cue.

Their forms were different from the rest of the aliens Dib had seen thus far; it was hard to tell when their organic bodies ended and their mechanical enhancements began.

“Oh, Red, finally it got here!” Dib started; he must have been staring too long, as the Purple one had detected his presence and was swatting at his partner’s arm to get his attention.

The servants all took note of the human – and their Tallets’s distraction - with immense relief, taking the opportunity to clean themselves off and tidy the mess on the floor. Dib felt a pang of sympathy, followed by an internal slap across the face to remind himself that _these are the assholes who took my planet. Save your pity for yourself_.

The Tallests untangled themselves from one another and stood, towering over Dib. The Red one wore an unimpressed expression, though the purple one seemed overjoyed that their new toy had arrived.

“_This_ was our sacrifice this time?” Red scoffed, his eyes trailing over Dib’s body. “It looks like most of them. Doesn’t even have any… mutations or anything.”

“You don’t know that,” Purple complained, shooting him a dirty look. “the uh, what’s the name of its planet? Urth? The Urth President Man seemed really insistent that we take this one.” It fixed its violet gaze on Dib and gestured with one hand. “Do a spin, plaything.”

Dib stood there, his resolve to be a model prisoner utterly dissolving as he was forced to see that they were also just oversized children. _Do a spin_, he was told. Dib focused on taking deep breaths and keeping his mouth in a perfect straight line.

“Aw, come on, do a spin! Red, it won’t do it. Make it do it.”

The Red Tallest frowned at him, then glanced at Dib with obvious revulsion.

“You mean touch it? _Irk_, no. I don’t think we let it clean up, like, at all. Or at least I’m pretty sure they don’t usually look like that.”

_Yup, that’s right, I’m so messed up, you better have your doctors take a look at me._ Dib thought encouragingly. He took a chance, slowly flopping to the floor like a ragdoll, letting out a small noise of pain. While neither of the Tallests looked incredibly sympathetic, they both made faces of disappointment, indicating that they were buying into Dib’s act.

“See? It’s all messed up from the invasion, _still_.” Groaned Red. Dib swallowed his rage as he continued: “It’s been like – what, months or something, right? Like, get _over_ it.”

“Actually, my Tallests,” came a very small voice from behind them, “i-it’s been the equivalent of nine earth days. T-this may be why its still in such bad condition.”

Both the tall aliens craned their heads to look at the shorter irken who dared interject without invitation. This one, like the rest of the servants, wore a tall collar that obfuscated his face, though Dib could still tell it was terrified. He stood in a stiff salute; eyes fixed a foot in the air above Dib’s head. Dib looked him in the face, trying to figure out why it would speak up. The Tallests also seemed baffled.

“…And you know this,” began Red, a three-pronged hand moving to rub exasperatedly at his temples. “how, exactly, uh-“

“Table Drone Cra - formerly Researcher Cra - my Tallests.” Cra stood straighter and saluted once again. Dib’s eyes widened at this new information. “You had me reassigned to… your personal service… after my work researching Earth. I can offer you any information you would like.”

“Oh yeah, we did do that,” Purple mused, glancing at his red counterpart with a smirk. “you worked with, uh, _him_, on that research, yeah? _Excellent work_.”

The tall irken let all his derision seep into the word “him” in a way that made Dib perk up a bit, extremely intrigued, though not at all surprised by this development. They obviously meant Zim, which meant he’d been correct in his earlier assumptions. A glance over at Cra told him that the former researcher also had… complicated feelings on Zim, if the way his forehead dented in was anything to go by. Dib had little time to consider what to do with this information, however, as the Tallests’ interest in him was renewed by the presence of an expert on his species.

“Tell me, Earth Sacrifice, how many hours does it take for your sun to orbit your little speck of dirt?” Asked Red imposingly. Though the servant – Cra – didn’t move at all, Dib swore the smaller alien was staring at him imploringly. He decided to be honest.

“Twenty-four hours,” he said, actually pleased with how his crackly voice suited his camouflage.

Both Tallest faces went blank for a long minute. Dib wondered if he’d said something wrong, felt his skin begin to crawl in anticipation of punishment of some kind.

“Oh!” Exclaimed the Purple one after a long moment. “It’s been 220 hours since we left. Cra got it right then.”

_They had to do that math in their heads_, Dib realized. Something between a sob and a laugh got caught in his chest, he was so overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. Luckily, it came out as a coughing fit, which visibly repelled both Tallests.

“Oh, nasty!” Purple ducked his head into the chest of his red counterpart, glaring at the air around Dib. “Okay, then – good news, Cra, you’ve been promoted again. Now you’re the royal… human… attendant. I don’t want to play with it until it’s back to being normal. Can you do that?”

Cra blinked in surprise before his eyes drifted back to Dib. Many emotions flashed in his yellow eyes before he settled on a glaringly fake happy face.

“O-of course, My Tallests! Thank you so much for this opportunity! I promise you, you won’t be disappointed!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Both Tallests had begun to wander back to their sofa before he’d even finished speaking. Red called over his shoulder before plopping down: “make it better by tomorrow at the latest. We need to know if it’s worth keeping around.”

“I already think it is!” Chimed Purple, more to Red than anyone else, as was his next statement, which Dib could only barely make out: “After all, Zim hasn’t managed to kill it yet.”

Once both his leaders were settled and distracted by their TVs once again, Cra finally let his obedient posture dissolve, arms falling to his sides defeatedly. He stared at Dib as if he could make the human evaporate, and Dib honestly wished for the same thing. Cra approached him and down at his form on the floor, noticing the cuffs he still wore.

“I can still make it hurt you,” The Irken warned in a quiet voice. “I know you’re not loopy, so you don’t have to act. Just do what I say, okay?”

Dib’s eyes widened and he glanced around to ensure that none of the others in the room had heard, which, if they had, they gave no indication. Cra narrowed one eye, widening the other as if to say: _deal?_

This Irken’s eyes were deep burgundy, and his antenna looked to be slightly different lengths. He wore the same red-and-purple uniform as the rest of the Tallests; servants, though Dib did notice that his PAK was quite a bit larger than the rest. Dib wondered if it formerly contained special equipment for his work as a researcher.

“Gotcha,” Dib whispered back, pulling himself to his feet. Cra sighed in relief, then turned with a gesture for the human to follow him. Dib did so, observing the lavish décor of the Tallests’ chambers along the way.

He really felt like a hobbit here, with the various tables, chairs, and home goods towered over him almost as much as the item’s owners did. He wondered if this was how Zim felt all the time. Dib reflected on the fact that, even as he’d witnessed and now met many Irkens, he’d yet to see any quite as small as Zim. The observation made him sad in a way he couldn’t pinpoint.

“In here,” Said Cra, voice still quiet. Dib was pleasantly surprised by this change of pace; it seemed every other Irken was fixated on volume over vocabulary. The burgundy-eyed alien pressed his shoulder into a huge, dark-blue door at the end of the hall and pushed, grunting with the effort. After a minute of watching, Dib joined the effort, and the two of them succeeded in hefting the thing open, though afterwards Cra only looked at him in annoyance.

Dib entered the new room, immediately delighted by the sight of what appeared to be some kind of shower; a stall of shining chrome, above which there was an enormous spout lit by thousands of tiny lights. Goosebumps of anticipation broke out over his skin as he heard Cra push the door closed. He heard a beep and then the cuffs on his wrists suddenly fell to the ground, undone.

“Hand me your soiled uniform.” Cra said, then turned a hue matching his eyes as he resolutely turned away, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other extended to receive Dib’s ruined clothes.

Dib had exactly no time to feel shy; he nearly jumped out of his clothes, tossing them at his new escort and stepping into the stall. He then remembered what Zim had said before – about how water actually hurt Irken flesh, and wondered – a bit too late – what exactly he’d be showered in. No sooner than he’d had this thought, he was already standing beneath a solid spray of… something.

The substance coated Dibs body slowly, seeping like molasses, though as it did so it seemed to tug the dirt, grime, and infection from the surface of his skin. It felt like his whole body was being roughly exfoliated while also feeling like he was about to be deep fried and stick on a stick to serve to carnival attendees.

"What _is_ this stuff?" He hazarded to ask, though Cra seemed very uninterested in satiating his curiosity.

"Cleaner." Came the expectedly unenthusiastic reply. 

"Cool, thanks," Dib said dryly. "Do I need to do anything here?"

"Sit still and let it work. Just tell me if you can't breathe suddenly." Car paused then, pressing a hand to the side of his head. "Wait, no you should be fine. Humans don't have gills, right?"

"_You're_ the human expert?" Dib scoffed before he could stop himself. "How?"

"Not on humans, thank you very much.” Cra turned to glare at him over his tall collar, seeming to forget his disgust for the man's nudity. “I mainly studied the stupid number of _other_ creatures on your planet. I’m still not sure why the Tallests picked your species instead of a dolphin. They’re _clearly_ was smarter.”

Dib laughed at that, raising his arms and twisting about to let the substance reach the rest of his injuries. The longer it was on his skin, the more Dib felt like a breathmint.

“You’re not wrong about that,” the human said. “I would also have preferred if your Tallests had taken a dolphin.”

“It certainly would have done a better job at entertaining them,” Cra shot back angrily. Something occurred to Dib.

“You get in trouble if I’m not fun enough?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Cra mumbled, then returned to himself, looking away from Dib once again. “I’ll give you one thing, _plaything_, you were smart to avoid the prisoner’s slop. If you’re _this_ boring when you’re sober, I don’t even want to think about how useless you’d be if you were in the same state Zim’s in right now.”

Dib rubbed his hands over his arms, marveling at how the open cuts had smeared into mostly-healed scars already. The bruises were still very noticeable, but he did notice that the pain they inflicted on him was slowly lessening. He chewed on his cheek before he dared to begin a very risky conversation.

“If I’m good for the Tallests – very good, I do whatever they need me to do to get their minds off of tormenting their underlings, this is good for you, right?”

Cra snorted. “No duh.”

“Interesting.” Dib took a deep breath. “How important is it to you, specifically?”

The irken turned and leveled a distrusting gaze at the human.

“What is it that you want, human?”

Dib smiled.

“A few things, but they’re really little, and will help both of us.” Wow, Dib was feeling like a fresh baby puppy by now. He seriously wanted to know what he was covered in for future reference. “For one, I’ll need access to human food, obviously. Then, any information you can offer me on what makes then tick.”

“Hmm.” Cra pondered these terms, one hand moving to twist around his shorter antenna. “Reasonable.”

“And,” Dib added quickly, and the alien’s face dropped. “I want to know more about Zim, your research with him, and what’s up with him and the Tallests.”

If Irken’s had irises, Dib guessed that Cra would have rolled his eyes until they all-but disappeared behind his eyelids. The alien sighed and slapped at the wall that had begun the shower, now halting the flow.

“_Irk,_ I’ve been trying to not think about that little defective.” He groaned. “Why would you want to know any of that? He’s the least helpful, most sabotage-oriented irken ever spawned.”

“I like to know who I share my room with,” Dib half-lied. “sometimes he tries to kill me. I want to be able to talk him out of that, whenever possible.”

“That’s him all right.” Cra laughed mirthlessly. He turned to rummage in a storage space that was concealed in a panel in the wall, returning with a thick towel and some shiny black cloth. He offered the former to the human first to dry the slime from his skin. “Fair. Fine, I’ll agree to this little arrangement. I’ll send some gaurds with rations once you’re back in your cell. You can have your information later - but only if you make a florpin’ _great_ second impression tomorrow, which should be pretty easy if you’re _always_ this quick on your feet, mentally.”

“No no,” Dib leaned over the stall, staring hard at the alien in frustration. “give me _something_ first. Zim wasn’t too happy that I left him alone in that cell, you know. There’s no guarantee I’ll live to see tomorrow. “

Cra’s lip curled, unhappy with the human’s back-talk, though seemingly understanding that Dib was correct here. He thought for a minute, then pulled his collar up higher on his face, murmuring something into the fabric. A moment later, a circle of light illuminated the ceiling before sliding open, and a metal ball hoovered its way down. Dib looked at it curiously as Cra cracked the sphere open like a it held a toy from a gachapon machine. The irken didn’t allow the human to see what was within, reaching in and rummaging for a minute before closing the sphere up once again, and allowing it to return to the ceiling. Cra then gestured to the towel in Dib’s hands.

Dib took the hint and patted himself down until he was mostly dry, though he did scoop some of the goo into the palm on his hands, wondering if he could smuggle it back to his cell with him. Interestingly, the more he held it, the more solid it appeared to become, like some kind of strnage form of non-Newtonian fluid. He concealed the apple-size ball of hardened goo behind his back as he accepted his new clothes from the guard, struggling to pull on the too-tight black number with one hand.

“I see what you have,” Cra said, monotone, and offered one hand to Dib. “I don’t care. You’ll need this too. It should buy you another night, at least.”

Dib flushed and stopped trying to hide his contraband, reaching sheepishly for the item held out to him and turning it over in his hands. It looked like a small metal arm, a robot’s arm, its entirety no longer than Dib’s forearm, though it looked as if it could slinky out longer. He gave Cra a questioning glance, and the irken sighed.

“Tell him: ‘Cra said he’s in pieces, but he’s fine’.” Before Dib could ask anything else, Cra was pushing the magnetic cuffs back onto his wrists. “Okay, that’s plenty for now. Let’s get you back to your cell so you can eat, sleep, and learn to be interesting.”

The outfit Dib had been given – black pants and a long dress-like tunic- actually fit him shockingly well, and seemed to mold to his body more and more as he moved. It was sleeveless, giving Dib ample opportunity to see his new shoulder-brand, and the fabric over the chest seemed a bit thicker than the rest, insulated the heat of his core. It had the texture of some kind of rubber-silk hybrid, but it breathed and kept Dib warm all at once. There were four pockets consealed in the skirt, though he realized as he slipped his contraband into them that nothing within those pockets was necessarily well hidden, tight as the fabric was. He assumed most Irkens kept their stuff in their PAKs.

To Dib’s disappointment, Cra was not his escort the full way back to his cell; once he arrived at the edge of the Tallests’ personal quarters, the original blue-hued guard was back, and impatient as ever. This angry irken seemed a bit disappointed that Dib seemed in better spirits, doubling his pace so that the human couldn’t outpace him with his longer legs. Luckily, this meant no time for any tormenting, and Dib arrived back at the seamless wall that held his prison before long.

“See you tomorrow, space chum.” The guard laughed maliciously as the wall opened to swallow Dib once again. The darkness that encased him was frighteningly comfortable, after all that.

Dib had plenty of time to think about what he’d say to Zim, but still, he found his back damp with sweat as he prophesied how well that conversation would go. He hoped the little irken was still loopy, still unfit to start anything.

He stood with his back flat against the once-a-door wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and pick out the subtle glow of Zim’s PAK. Long minutes passed with no change in visibility, and Dib sighed.

“Zim?” He called hesitantly. There was no response.

_Maybe they put him somewhere else_. Dib felt his skin go clammy. _Maybe they got sick of him, threw him out into space._

“Hey, Zim?” Dib’s voice came out a bit more frantic. “Are you still in here?”

This time he heard some familiar scuttling sounds from above him, and sighed in relief – nonsensically, as every other time Zim was directly above him, it seemed he was about to attack Dib. This time, however, the sounds merely quieted before another sound became audible; the tearing of fabric.

Dib jumped as something touched his bare arms, then more things, and after a moment of scrambling in the dark, he was able to catch one and feel what it was. A piece of his coat, shredded into confetti.

“Okay, yeah, I deserve that,” Dib said, arms out, palms upraised. “I was a dick, that was really uncool of me. But I needed to keep my cover, okay? I needed them to underestimate me so I could gather information.”

A new flurry of coat fragments fell onto Dib’s head, startling him, before a blinding red strobe made him cover his eyes in discomfort.

“Don’t ever talk to Zim again, worthless human garbage.” The voice from above him was croaky, quieter than normal, with only a touch of the feverish tone from earlier. It made Dib’s chest tighten.

Somehow, this display hurt him worse than if the irken had jumped him with a shiv upon his reentry.

“I don’t deserve your tolerance, I know. I should have talked to you beforehand, but you were so out of it… ” Dib sighed deeply, then tried again. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I shouldn’t have done that.”

There was, again, no response. Dib closed his eyes, frustrated, and dug in his pocket for the thing Cra had given him. Dib ran a hand over the metal thing, visualizing what it most have come from, wondering at the robot’s importance to Zim. Whatever it was, it was his last shot at appealing to Zim’s better side. Hesitantly, he raised his hand until the thing was on display.

“I uh, met somebody who knows you, by the way. His name is Cra? He told me to tell you this, uh, he said – ‘he’s in pieces, but he’s okay’. I assume this means something to you?”

Dib jumped as something metal and snakelike snatched the thing out of his open palm. There was a flurry of movement above him, seemingly as Zim scuttled to the other side of the cell.

A moment later, the dimmest of red lights lit the opposing corner, illuminating the tiny irken as he stared hard at his newly acquired object. He wore an expression that Dib couldn’t process; some sort of mixture of relief, hope, and mourning. It felt like a private moment, so Dib averted his gaze respectfully. Darkness fell again, as did Dib’s hopes for forming any sort of alliance with his cellmate.

But then, a half hour later, as Dib was starting to wonder when his food would be arriving, the silence was broken. Zim’s voice was flatter, more detached, but he was at the very least directly speaking to Dib. It was a start. He asked, with interest:

“So, Dib-thing. You met the Tallests, did you?”

“I did.” Dib confirmed. “And I have another meeting with them tomorrow.”

There was another agonizing silence, broken at last by contemplative tapping of metal limbs on a metal floor. Dib smiled in relief as the irken finally spoke:

“Tell me what your plan is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, sorry about that wait, guys! Life got crazy. I hope this chapter is worth the wait.  
(Also oops, yeah I have 2 OCs in here, lol I hope Cra and Wipp (the gaurd) don't distract from the plot too much. Let me know what you think of them!)  
Also: because I can't say this enough, thank you to everyone reading, leaving kudos, commenting - you guys make my day,, & ilysm <3


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